First XLIC Training School will take place in Zaragoza, at the premises of Z-CAM (http://www.z-cam.es/). It will be organized in two modules of one week each. Attendees can participate in one or both of them.

• Module 1. March 9-13, 2015
  Molecular Excited States (Download tentative program)
• Module 2. March 16-20, 2015
  New Computational Methods for Attosecond Molecular Processes (Download tentative program)

TRAINING PROGRAM: Contents of the courses and list of trainers can be checked, for each module, in the documents linked above. Nevertheless, interested participants are encouraged to check for updates on each module webpage .

ACCOMMODATION: Local organizers have arranged accommodation  for all registered participants in the same hotels (Apartamentos Los Sitios and Apartamentos Los Girasoles), where apartments (multiple occupancy with individual rooms) with a kitchen area are offered during the duration of the schools (arriving on Sunday and leaving on Friday). Participats attending both modules can also stay in the apartment during the weekend.
If you are interested in this option, please, contact local organisers as soon as possible to confirm booking details. Payment should be done directly by each participant before leaving.

MEALS: Lunches during training days will be covered for all participants. Dinner and breakfast will not be included.

FEES: There are no registration fees.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT: XLIC Action will offer grants to partially cover the participation of young researchers involved in the Action. Each participant will receive a notification with information on the amount granted. of grants and amount will depend on the number of requests for funding.

REGISTRATION is now closed. Participants can check the status of their application at CECAM website (separately for each module), using their CECAM account.

REIMBURSEMENT: Each participant should pay his/her own expenses to the Hotel before leaving. Those participants selected for funding will receive a letter indicating the fixed amount granted. After the event, reimbursement will be done subject to the submission of a payment request form and the effective attendance to the school. No receipts will be asked for.

LOCATION: The activities will take place at the R+D Building (BIFI) in the campus of the University of Zaragoza in the north of the city (ZCAM CONFERENCE BUILDING: Campus Río Ebro – Edificio I+D; C/Mariano Esquillor s/n. 50018 Zaragoza)

HOW TO REACH ZARAGOZA: You can arrive in Zaragoza by plane, train, bus and car. If you come from abroad and you land at either Madrid or Barcelona airports, then the train or the bus are usually the best options for the last part of the trip up to Zaragoza.

• By plane: The airport is situated 9 km from the city. At present, there are regular flights to Frankfurt (weekdays), Rome, London, Milan and Lisbon and domestic flights to Madrid and Barcelona. Connections from the airport to the city are by bus and taxi. You can make a flight search in the web sites of the companies that operate with the Zaragoza airport: Iberia, Air Europa, and Ryanair (low cost company).
• By train: Zaragoza has a new railway station (Estación de Delicias), with a high‐speed connection to Madrid and Barcelona (AVE train). The railway station is at the same place as bus and taxi stops, and car rental services. Zaragoza is also connected by train to other major Spanish cities such as Valencia, Granada, Sevilla and Málaga. Timetable information can be obtained at the Spanish Railway Company web site: Renfe.
• By bus: Zaragoza is connected by bus to the main Spanish cities. You can search the routes and timetables in the web site of the Spanish bus company ALSA.
• By car: Zaragoza has an excellent communication network, and is linked to the North of Spain: through a motor way to Bilbao (A‐68) and Barcelona (A‐2), and the Aragón highway connecting to Madrid (N‐II).

The 3rd meeting organized in the framework of Working Group 2 of COST Action CM1204 (XUV/X-ray light and fast ions for ultrafast chemistry) will take place in Leiden (Netherlands) from May 11 to 13, 2015. It will be an expert meeting centered on Large Interstellar Molecules: “Energetic Processing of Large Interstellar Molecules”.

Three key questions will be addressed during the workshop:

• Which experimental techniques do we need to develop to probe correlated electronic-vibrational dynamics in photo-activated molecules?
• What is the functional role of non-equilibrium vibrational motion for energy and charge transport as well as energy storage in biomolecules? How are these specific molecular motions “selected”?
• Do we have an appropriate theoretical framework to describe and understand these phenomena? Is the predictive power of the current theories enough to accurately predict dynamics and functionality?

More information can be found on the meeting website: http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/lc/web/2015/725/info.php3?wsid=725&venue=Snellius

FINANCIAL SUPPORT:
The participation of a limited number of XLIC participants and speakers will be supported with the Action budget. Participants entitled for reimbursement should have been informally notified about their status.

By the end of March, all participants will receive an official invitation to the meeting confirming their eligibility status and highligting some of the COST rules for reimbursement which should be carefully examined before incurring any expense in:

• COST Vademecum, page 19-23, and /or
• the instructions on how to fill the Travel Reimbursement Request Form (TRR)

Since the budget allocated for the meeting is limited, it is highly reccomended keeping the claims for meals and accomodation at the actual level of expensiture during the meeting. Nevertheless. in compliance with COST rules, this subsistence expenses will be reimbursed on the basis of flat rates (no need to show invoices). The applicable flat rates for this meeting, as approved by XLIC Management Committee, are 100 EUR for accommodation and 0 EUR for meals.

For travel expenses actual costs can be claimed on the basis of the receipts provided. (Any restriction applying to travel expenses will be notified to each participant entitled for reimbursement)

IMPORTANT: Participants selected for reimbursement are kindly asked to keep their expenses as low as possible to ensure a wide distribution of the Action budget.

The submission of claims shall be done after the meeting, but, for any non-regular expense or doubt you may have, please, better ask in advance (info@xlic.eu). E.g. fligths departure/arrivals from/to places other than where the eligible participant is working/residing, extra meals, nights, taxi expenses, etc. shall not be reimbursed if permission is not requested before the meeting.

The 2nd COST XLIC Working Group 3 Meeting –  Control of Chemical Reactivity will be held at Queen’s University Belfast, on 4th – 5th April 2016.

Scope of the meeting:
The topic of interest of the XLIC Working Group 3 (WG3) is to control the reactivity of highly excited and/or ionized molecules through pump-probe techniques and High Harmonic spectroscopy, i.e., to control electron transfer, isomerization and dissociation with attosecond temporal and sub-Angstrom spatial resolution.
Specific areas addressed by the WG are:
* Development and application of optimal control theory (OCT)
* Use of time-resolved pump-probe techniques to control process relevant to atmospheric chemistry or biomolecules
* Development and use of current theories to treat the dynamics of pump-probe experiments
* Study of the response of molecular systems irradiated by strong fields

Meeting Details:
The 2nd WG3 meeting will be hosted by Queen’s University Belfast over two full days (4th-5th April 2016) with contributions from invited speakers and young scientists, including a poster session.

The WG1 Expert Meeting on ‘Frontiers in attosecond theory: from atoms to molecules to solids’’ has been approved by the COST Management Committee. The workshop will take place in Han-sur-Lesse (The Ardennes, Belgium) on April 4-8, 2016, at the Domain des Masures.
The chair of the organizing committee is Prof. Bernard Piraux.

The meeting will cover the following topics:
– hole dynamics in inner/valence shells of atoms/molecules
– ultrafast response to electron removal in solids
– ultrafast dynamics in chiral systems
– theoretical methods for ultrafast dynamics

Invited speakers:
Vitali Averbukh (Imperial College, London);  Jamal Berakdar (Martin-Luether University, Halle), Alexander Galstyan (University Louvain la Neuve), Bernard Pons (CELIA, Bordeaux), Armin Scrinzi (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich).

Registration:
Due to the capacity of the venue, the workshop will be limited to 30 participants. The total cost per person is 309 €, and it includes all meals and accommodation for 5 days.
If you plan to attend the workshop, please fill out this form. The deadline for registration is January 29, 2016. Once the list of participants will be known, you will receive the confirmation of your registration as well as more information about the organization of the workshop

The abstract submission deadline  is January 29.
Please send one page abstract to olga.smirnova@mbi-berlin.de  and Bernard.Piraux@uclouvain.be.
Please use the following subject line: Ardennes_abstract_name
and indicate in your email the type of the contribution you wish to present: oral or poster.

Abstracts will be reviewed by the program committee, which includes:
Prof. Henri Bachau (CELIA Bordeaux), Prof. Piero Decleva (Università di Trieste),  Prof. Lars Madsen (Aarhus University), Prof. Fernando Martin (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid).

The 2nd meeting of XLIC WG1 “Ultrafast electron dynamics in molecules” will take place on August 29-30, at the University of Edinburgh. The organizer of the COST WG1 meeting is Dr. Olga Smirnova. The local organizer of the COST WG1 meeting is Dr. Adam Kirrander.
The place for the meeting also allows the COST members to  take advantage of the very interesting Faraday Discussions, ‘Ultrafast imaging of photochemical dynamics’ , which will also take place in Edinburgh on August 31-Sept 2, see http://www.rsc.org/ConferencesAndEvents/RSCConferences/FD/Photodynamics-FD2016/index.asp.
If you have not yet taken notice of this Faraday Discussion, please note  that the deadline for the Faraday Discussions abstract (poster) submission is  June 20.

ACCOMODATION

We have reserved 100 rooms on campus, at the student dorms, for the duration of both the COST and the Faraday Discussions meetings.
To reserve accommodation during the meeting please use the link below: http://www.epay.ed.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&deptid=24&catid=17&prodid=2265&searchresults=1
On the booking site, if you click on the Package Option tab, you’ll see two room booking options, one for 3 nights at £240 – this is in a nicer room with ensuite bathroom.
This option 2 is a booking for 5 nights (covering both the XLIC and the FD), in less attractive but more affordable rooms with shared bathroom (approx 4-5 rooms per bathroom).
The deadline for room booking is June 1.
Alternative/additional options for  accommodation  for five days covering both meetings  are offered by the FD meeting booking system: http://www.epay.ed.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&deptid=24&catid=17&prodid=2268&searchresults=1
You can find more options via hotel booking service appointed  for the FD :    http://www.ellis-salsby.co.uk/forthcoming-events/ultrafast-imaging-of-photochemical-dynamics-faraday-discussion.html

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

Abstract submission for the WG1 meeting is now open. Submission deadline is June 20.
7 hot topic talks will be selected from all submitted abstracts.
Please send abstracts to: olga.smirnova@mbi-berlin.de and Adam.Kirrander@ed.ac.uk and use the subject line: Edinburgh COST WG1 abstract.
Abstract  (poster) submission deadline for the Faraday discussion is June 20.

BRIEF WG1 MEETING PROGRAMME
NEW! Final programme can be downloaded here: 2ndWG1meeting-program

Session 1: “Ultrafast Non-adiabatic dynamics, Surface hopping, solvent effects”.
Discussion leader: V. Engel.
Invited speakers: M. Barbatti, B. Lasorne, F. Santoro
Session 2: “Synchrotrons, ultrafast optical and X-ray absorption spectroscopies”
Discussion leader: V. Averbukh
Invited speakers:  O. Travnikova, M.A. Hervé du Penhoat, C. Milne
Session 3: “Time-resolved cluster dynamics”
Discussion leader: T. Fennel
Invited speakers: D. Rolles, M. Krikunova, U. Saalman
Session 4: “Imaging and control of molecular dynamics”
Discussion leader: R. Moshammer
Invited speakers: J. Kuepper, R. Forbes, M. Richter, J. Feist
Session 5: “Multielectron dynamics in external fields: advances in theory”
Discussion leader: E. Suraud
Invited speakers: L. Madsen, A. Scrinzi, H. Bachau, S. Patchkovskii
Session 6: “New trends in attosecond spectroscopy”
Discussion leader: M. Ivanov
Invited speakers: J. Mauritsson, A. Brown, M. Dahlström, F. Lepine

NEW! PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Travel from Edinburgh airport (in order of convenience)
TAXI: Follow signs in the terminal, the taxi rank is located at the bottom of the building across from the terminal. A taxi from the airport to a city centre location should cost about £25-£30 (credit cards are normally accepted, but check with driver).
BUS: Airport busses to the city centre (bus no. 100) are frequent and depart from outside the terminal building. The bus terminates at Waverley Train Station, in the centre of Edinburgh, with a taxi rank close by for onwards travel. A return ticket is £7.50.
TRAM: One can also travel from the airport to the city centre by tram. The trams depart from a station outside the terminal. Make sure to get off at the right stop (for most, this will be the stop closest to Waverly Train Station i.e. St Andrews Square). Note that the tram is slower than the bus. A return ticket is £8.50.

Travel to Pollock Halls, for those who booked the conference accommodation
The easiest way to travel to Pollock Halls is to take the taxi directly from the airport to Pollock Halls. A cheaper alternative is to take an airport bus (see above) to the final stop at Waverley Train Station and then take a taxi to Pollock Halls for approx. £5 (in addition to the airport bus fare).
Please report at the reception at Pollock Halls (open 24/7). The address of the reception is: 18 Holyrood Park Road, EH16 5AY, Edinburgh (note that google maps for some reason places the location marker inside the campus area, when in fact the reception is located near the entrance).

Conference venue
The conference takes place in Lecture Theatre T250 in the Joseph Black Building at the King’s Buildings Campus of University of Edinburgh (see http://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/maps for campus maps). A registration desk inside the entrance of the Joseph Black Building will be open from 08.20 every morning. The address is:
School of Chemistry
Joseph Black Building
King’s Buildings Campus
University of Edinburgh
David Brewster Road
EH9 3FJ Edinburgh
(GOOGLE MAPS: https://goo.gl/maps/GEuDbJod59T2)
For those staying at Pollock Halls, it is a 9 minute taxi ride (approx. £6) or a 26 minute walk (see e.g. Google Maps for directions).

OTHER

Last but not least, the meeting will occur at the time of the world-famous Edinburgh Theater Festival https://www.edfringe.com/, which many of you might get a chance to enjoy.

REGISTRATION

Please, complete the form below to register. The registration deadline is June 5.

The XLIC WG1&WG2 Expert Meeting “From Ultrafast to Ultraslow Dynamics in Molecules and Clusters” will be held in the Weizmann Institute of Science Israel , from 23th to 25th January  2017.The Meeting  is jointly organized by the Local organizing committee, the team of the conference unit of the  Weizmann Institute and COST CM1204 Action (XLIC).
The workshop participation is open to everybody.

Scope and Program of the Meeting

Dynamical processes in molecular and cluster systems play an important role in different disciplines of  research including atmospheric and interstellar chemistry, biology, nano-science and more. It is appealing to classify different types of dynamics according to their time scale – from attosecond electronic dynamics, femtosecond and picosecond ro-vibrational motion up to typical nanosecond times of spontaneous radiative processes. However, even in small clusters and biomolecules, coupling of many degree’s of freedom can lead to ultra-slow dynamics extending up to millisecond times.
In recent years, experimental techniques for studying these different dynamics have considerably advanced – from the development of ultrafast light sources, including high-order harmonic generation and free electron laser X-ray facilities, as well as highly controlled ion traps and ion storage rings that allow following a slow evolving time evolution of isolated molecular and cluster ions. On the theoretical side, quantum mechanical calculations provide insight regarding short time scales, while statistical models can describe long time dynamics on the ensemble level.
These communities have developed in parallel and often with little interaction with each-other. The goal of this workshop  will be to bridge the gap between the different communities towards a full understanding of molecular and cluster dynamics. For example, it will be valuable to understand the role of initial ultrafast electronic and vibrational rearrangement of an isolated system on its slow decay by statistical fragmentation. Does ultrafast dynamics leading to internal conversion influence delayed recurrent fluorescence events? What is the importance of the coherent vibrational motion for long term processes and spectroscopic probes of isolated interstellar environments or biomolecular systems?
We aim at achieving this goal by bringing together leading experts from the different fields: including atto-second science, femto-chemistry, action spectroscopy, ion storage devices, time-dependent quantum mechanics and statistical physics – in order to promote a common language and shared goals. In particular, participants will be asked to highlight the scientific goals and challenges of each field to promote collaborative efforts. We hope that this conference will generate long term collaborations that will advance our understanding of molecular and cluster science across  the different time scales.

Immportant dates

Abstract Submission Deadline: November 1st, 2016
Registration Deadline: January 5th, 2017

Registration

Click here to register

List of invited speakers

Noam Agmon, Hebrew University, Israel
Lars H. Andersen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Itzik Ben-Itzhak, Kansas State University, USA
Valerie Blanchet, CELIA, Bordeaux, France
Anastasia Bochenkova, Moscow State University, Russia
Steen Brondsted Nielsen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Philip Bucksbaum, Stanford, USA
Francesca Calegari, Politecnico Milano, Italy
Lorenz Cederbaum, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Henrik Cederquist, Stockholm University, Sweden
Brett Esry, Kansas State University, USA
Sharly Fleischer, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Jason Greenwood, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Christiane Koch, Universität Kassel, Germany
Ronni Kosloff, Hebrew University, Israel
Holger Kreckel, MPI-K Heidelberg, Germany
Stephen Leone, UC Berkeley, USA
Nimrod Moiseyev, Technion, Israel
Edvardas Narevicius, Weizmann Institute, Israel
Daniel Neumark, UC Berkeley USA
Thomas Pfeifer, MPI-K Heidelberg, Germany
Igor Schapiro, Hebrew University, Israel
Haruo Shiromaru, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan
Jan. R. R. Verlet, Durham University, UK
Mathias Weber, JILA, Colorado, USA
Roland Wester, Universität Innsbruck , Austria

The International school on “The Frontiers of Attosecond and Ultrafast X-ray Science” will be held from 19th to 28th March 2017 in Erice, Sicily, Italy.

The primary objective of this new school is to educate the next generation of scientists who will impact the future of attosecond and ultrafast x-ray science. We anticipate that the school will meet on a regular basis every two years and become a foundation for the ultrafast community. Consequently, the main topics of the course are the following: (i) attosecond science and technology, devoted to the generation and application of attosecond pulses to the investigation of electronic dynamics in atoms, molecules, nanostructures and condensed phases; (ii) fundamentals, methods and applications of free electron lasers, synchrotron radiation, ion collisions in atomic and molecular science. Lectures will cover current developments in theory and experiments but are also intended to give the basics of the field.

Please note that, PhD students and post-docs willing to attend the school can apply for scholarships (deadline 30 January 2017). For more details see: http://www.erice-attosecond.it/registration

The school co-organised by XLIC COST Action and sponsored by Politecnico di Milano, Italian Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Sicilian Regional Parliament, ELI-ALPS and Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture.

The organizers,

Louis Di Mauro, Alicja Domaracka, Mauro Nisoli and  Sergio Martellucci