This issue consists of contributions submitted by participants attending the Colloquium on High Resolution Molecular Spectroscopy (HRMS), held in Budapest, Hungary, from 25 August to 30 August 2013. This was the 23rd in a biennial series of international conferences, which in recent years have taken place alternately in Dijon, France (1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 [Citation1]) and in another European country (1997 in Glasgow, Scotland; 2001 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands; 2005 in Salamanca, Spain; 2009 in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy [Citation2]). This series has a long-standing tradition as one of the most important conferences worldwide on all aspects of high resolution molecular spectroscopy. The next conference is planned to take place in Dijon from 23 to 28 August 2015, and interested scientists should contact Vincent Boudon, University of Bourgogne, Dijon, or a member of the executive committee.
Many of the important research groups in this field are represented regularly at this meeting. In recent years, the conference has established a special relationship with the journal Molecular Physics, which sponsors the ‘Molecular Physics lecture’ to be given by a most distinguished senior scientist in the field of high resolution molecular spectroscopy. Previous Molecular Physics lectures have been given by Jim K.G. Watson (1997), Alan Carrington (1999), John M. Brown (2001), Richard N. Zare (2003), Terry A. Miller (2005), Fleming F. Crim (2007), Keiichi Tanaka (2009) and Marsha Lester (2011) [Citation3]. For the 2013 meeting the lecture was given by Jürgen Troe on ‘From quantum chemistry to dissociation kinetics – what we need to know’. An invited article by Professor Troe is featured in this issue [Citation4].
The conference also honours junior scientists by the Amat-Mills award given for the best contributed paper as selected by the award committee. In 2013 the award was given to Johannes Burkart (Grenoble) and Francesco Cappelli (Florence). This award consists of a diploma, free registration for the next colloquium and a substantial gift of books including this time, in particular, the three-volume Handbook of High Resolution Spectroscopy [Citation5] and the handbook, Laser-Based Measurements for Time & Frequency Domain Applications [Citation6]. These awards were given during an exceptional conference dinner, which was combined with a boat trip on the Danube along the shores of Budapest and its surroundings. Other highlights of the conference included minisymposia on nuclear motions, small jet-cooled molecules, rare isotope detection and a young speakers’ session.
It is a great pleasure to see the many excellent contributions to this special issue associated with the conference and with this subject area. While the papers appearing here represent only a small fraction of the approximately 250 contributions presented at the conference, they nevertheless provide a useful overview of various aspects of the conference and the research field. All papers were handled through the normal reviewing and editorial processes. We hope that the tradition of publishing excellent spectroscopic work in Molecular Physics will continue for a long time.
References
- T.P. Softley , V. Boudon , P. De Natale , M. Herman , and M. Quack , Mol. Phys. 109 , 2069 (2011).
- P. De Natale , G. Di Lonardo , M. Herman , M. Quack , and T.P. Softley , Mol. Phys. 108 , 675 (2010).
- J.M. Beames , F. Liu , and M.I. Lester , Mol. Phys. 112 , 897 (2014).
- J. Troe , Mol. Phys. (2014).
- M. Quack and F. Merkt , editors, Handbook of High Resolution Spectroscopy (Wiley, Chichester , 2011).
- M. Bellini , P. Maddaloni and P. De Natale , Laser-Based Measurements for Time and Frequency Domain Applications: A Handbook (Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, FL , 2013).