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

The CECAM workshop Seeking synergy between dynamics and statistics for non-equilibrium quantum processes will be held in Paris in June 6th-9th.

One of the major difficulties in achieving an accurate theoretical descriptions of non-equilibrium processes in quantum mechanical systems is framed by the desire to provide a representation of the system of interest that is as realistic as possible, in a manner that is computationally tractable. The coupling of electronic and nuclear motion involving excited states, the quantum nature of the nuclear degrees of freedom, and the application of time-dependent driving forces, are just few examples of the effects that must be addressed in order to simulate these processes. Each of these effects poses unique challenges to theoretical progress. A number of exact and approximate quantum dynamics techniques are being developed and refined in order to provide algorithms that respond to the demand for a balance between computational efficiency and physical accuracy. Currently available techniques are typically based upon two different, but equivalent, formulations of many-body quantum mechanics, the wave function approach or the density matrix picture.

The proposed workshop aims to bring together the two principal molecular quantum dynamics communities (wave-function methods and density matrix approaches). The scope is threefold, (i) to identify and explore common goals and obstacles, (ii) help in fostering new ideas to connect these approaches, and bridge the apparent gap between approximate dynamical and statistical descriptions, (iii) identify possible routes to extend dynamics approaches to the domain of statistics.

At the workshop, experts are asked to uncover the fundamental details of the methods in pedagogical lectures. These lectures will be followed by extensive discussions, during which contributed speakers and participants are welcome to put forth some of their doubts and problems in the relation between dynamics and statistics.

Further information can be at:          https://www.cecam.org/workshop-1483.html

Preliminary invited speakers are:

Nandini Ananth (Cornell University, USA) Sara Bonella (CECAM, Switzerland) Irene Burghardt (Goethe University, Germany) Eitan Geva (University of Michigan, USA) E. K. U. Gross (Max-Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Germany) Raymond Kapral (University of Toronto, Canada) Dvira Segal (University of Toronto, Canada) Jeremy Richardson (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Graham Worth (University College London, UK)

The European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics and the European Quantum Electronics Conference will take place from Sunday 25 June to Thursday 29 June 2017 in Munich (ICM), Germany as part of the World of Photonics Congress and the Laser World of Photonics 2017, the world’s leading laser trade fair.

The Congress will be the largest, most comprehensive and prestigious gathering of optics and photonics scientists and engineers organized in Europe in 2017.

A full list of topics and committees can be viewed on the conference website at http://www.cleoeurope.org/  and we hope you will agree that the high quality of plenary, keynote, tutorial, invited speakers and short courses promises to make this conference unmissable!

The chairs invite you to come to Munich during June 25 – 29, 2017 and participate in Europe’s most exciting photonics and quantum electronics event. The historical and cultural atmosphere of Munich in June also provides a perfect environment for scientific and professional networking and is a tremendous source of scientific inspiration.

Contributed papers can now be sent on line via https://sciconf.org/cee2017/submit.

Please remember the deadline for the submissions: Thursday January 19, 2017, 23:59 CET.

Submissions should consist of a 35-word abstract and a single A4 page summary in pdf format.

Conference topics cover a very wide spectrum of technical areas including laser development, new optical materials, nonlinear optics and nonlinear dynamics, ultrafast phenomena, telecommunications technologies, atom and quantum optics, quantum information, precision metrology, fibre optics, optical sensing, photonic crystals, nanophotonics and metamaterials etc.  A particular highlight of the 2017 programme will be a series of special symposia surveying recent advances in the following emerging areas of:

• Free Electron Lasers and Applications
• Advanced Microscopy and Nanoscopy
• Photonics in Cancer Detection and Therapy
• Optics of Topological Insulators
• Perovskite Optoelectronics

More details can be found at http://www.cleoeurope.org/

The conference is organised by the European Physical Society and its Quantum Electronics and Optics Division (QEOD), in cooperation with the IEEE Photonics Society and the Optical Society (OSA).

The CLEO^®/Europe-EQEC conference series provides a unique European forum, offering informative reviews and discussing recent advances covering a wide spectrum of topics, from fundamental light-matter interactions and new sources of coherent light, to technology development, systems engineering and applications in industry and applied science.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Munich!
Giulio Cerullo, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Valerio Pruneri, ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences & ICREA, Spain

CLEO®/Europe General Chairs

Thorsten Ackemann, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom

Christine Silberhorn, Universität Paderborn, Germany

EQEC General Chairs

Jörg Schreiber, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Garching, Germany CLEO®/Europe-EQEC Local Chair