Message from the organizers

We warmly thank the delegates, accompanying persons, sponsors and exhibitors who took part in the 31^st International Conference on Photonic, Electronic and Atomic Collisions (ICPEAC XXXI) in Caen and Deauville, France, from 23 to 30 July 2019 at the University of Caen Normandie for the first day of Tutorials and then at the Deauville International Conference Centre. This conference continued the sixty-year history of the ICPEAC series which began in New York, USA, in 1958 and held biennially since 1961.

With an attendance of 615 participants, including 32% of early-career researchers, ICPEAC XXXI brought together world's leading scientists who worked actively in the fields of collisions involving photons, electrons, ions, atoms, molecules, clusters, surfaces, and exotic particles. The ICPEAC XXXI scientific program was carefully selected by the International Program Committee. It was led by distinguished tutorial and plenary lecturers who introduced and highlighted the recent discoveries in their field of research. The winners of the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics presented their remarkable achievements in one of the plenary session. This was followed by 62 progress reports which gave further details and in-depth analysis of many important works. Close to 795 original presentations were scheduled in 5 poster sessions with the best poster selected daily by the popular vote and 28 "hot topic" presentations promoted to oral talks.

The ICPEAC XXXI tutorials and the main conference were strongly supported by the conference sponsors which made possible to organize this event under very good conditions. They were looked after by professional and dedicated teams of conference logistics from both hosting locations who made the conference program running smoothly. The Local Organizing Committee is very thankful to all of them.

The delegates and guests enjoyed the social program, including gastronomy and wine during the Welcome Reception and Conference Dinner. They were immersed in the mazes of ancient Rome, thanks to virtual reality techniques developed by a well-known laboratory in Caen. The week-end was dedicated to excursions tours allowing to discover not only the delightful resort of Deauville, regarded as the “Queen of the Norman beaches”, but also the whole heritage offered by the Normandy territory.

We very much hope that you appreciated your attendance at the ICPEAC XXXI and you had been both enlightened and entertained by the conference and its social activities.

On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee