The 12th Asia Pacific Physics Conference of AAPPS (APC12)
Tohru Motobayashi (Vice-Chair of APPC12, RIKEN Nishina Center)
The 12th Asia Pacific Physics Conference (APPC12) was held at the International Conference Hall in Makuhari, Chiba, Japan, from 14th to 19th July 2013. The conference APPC, one of the major activities of AAPPS, has been held every two or three years since its first meeting at Singapore in 1983, which triggered the creation of AAPPS. This 12th meeting, held in the year of the 30th anniversary, is hosted by JPS (the Physical Society of Japan) and JSAP (the Japan Society of Applied Physics), with financial support by Chiba Prefecture and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
ASEPS (Asia-Europe Physics Summit) is another AAPPS activity organized in collaboration with EPS (the European Physical Society). It aims at enhancing cooperation in physics research between Asia and Europe.
Following the first meeting at Tsukuba, Japan (2010) and the second one at Wroclaw, Poland (2011), ASEPS3, the third ASEPS meeting, was held together with APPC12 during its period. The workshop “Women in Physics” was also held as a part of the APPC12 program.
The first events of APPC12 on Sunday 14th were public lectures by Masanori Iye on the Universe viewed by a new-generation telescope, by Hidetoshi Katori on ultra-high precision atomic clock, and by Hirohiko Tshujii on cancer therapy by heavy-ion beams. The opening session was started by the conference chair Shoji Nagamiya on Monday 15th. He emphasized changes and development of physics research in Asia and Pacific regions during the past 30 years and progress at present. Two Opening Addresses by Akito Arima and Kok Khoo Phua, founders of APPC and AAPPS, introduced histories of their formation. Then two keynote talks were given by Makoto Kobayashi on the past 30 years of particle physics and Koichi Kitazawa on the future energy in Japan.
The AAPPS Chen Ning Yang Award (C.N. Yang Award) has been given in the occasion of APPC to young physicists. Based on the discussions in the AAPPS Council, the awardees this year were selected in a new scheme, nomination from recommended candidates from Asia-Oceania by a selection committee. The four award winners, Jun Cao (IHEP, China), Nae Ho Park (Konkyuk U., Korea), Toshiro Kaneko (Tohoku U., Japan) and Masahide Yamaguchi (TITeck, Japan), received the prize and books with letters by C.N. Yang himself.
The general structure of the program is by plenary talks in the morning, poster sessions at noon, and parallel (topical) sessions in the afternoon. The plenary session on Tuesday was devoted to ASEPS with four scientific presentations by European speakers respectively on LHC, photonics with nanotechnology, fiber accelerators, and climate engineering. ASEPS Round tables were in the afternoons of Tuesday and Wednesday in parallel with the topical sessions, discussing about international strategic planning for large research facilities, international year of light, and education and outreach.
The APPC12 topical sessions were grouped to the following 22 subjects.
A1 Spintronics, Magnetism, and Topological Insulators
A2 Solid-state Quantum Physics and Devices
A3 Graphene and Other Carbon-based Materials
A4 Oxides and Novel Low-dimensional and Nano-structured Materials
A5 Low Temperature Physics
A6 Electron Correlation and Superconductivity
A7 Quantum Information and Statistical Physics
B1 Particle Physics
B2 Nuclear Physics
B3 Atomic and Molecular Physics
B4 Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Gravitation
C1 Synchrotron Radiation
C2 Neutron Scattering
C3 Optical Science
D1 Plasma Physics
D2 Plasma Processing
D3 High Intensity Laser Plasma Science
D4 Astro- & Space-Plasma
E Computational Physics
F Physics Education
G Women in Physics
H Others (Physics frontiers)
There held several joint sessions among different subjects.
Totally 1256 people (284 from overseas) participated APPC12. They are from 28 countries and regions mostly in Asia and Oceania. Most of the participants presented their papers consisting of the one for 18 plenary talks, 147 invited talks and 249 regular talks in the topical sessions, and 735 poster presentations. In addition, four plenary talks in the ASEPS session and many speakers in the ASESP Round Tables should be counted.
These number might be the largest among the APPC meetings so far, affecting recent progress of physics research in Asia-Oceania region.
More importantly, active and lively discussions were made in each oral or poster session with reasonable number of audience. This could be traced by the statistics: Averaged numbers of audience in the plenary and topical sessions are respectively 160 (312 max.) and 40 (75 max.). Percentage of the missing posters (among about 200 posters each day) was 10% on average.
The conference was finished by the two short sessions on Friday: ASEPS Summary with the “Chiba Statement” signed by Shoji Nagamiya (AAPPS president) and John Dudley (EPS president), and the APPC12 Closing. Chair of the Program Committee, Mamiko Sasao, emphasized in her summary for the scientific program that physics in extremely wide area has been discussed by participants in a wide range (young to old, men and women) in APPC12. The next meeting APPC13 will be held in Brisbane, Australia in December 2016.
The conference proceedings will be published on-line as a supplement of JPSJ (Journal of the Physical Society of Japan).
The conference organizers hope that APPC12 was fruitful for all the participants. More information on the conference may be found in the web page