Conference Report on SAGAMORE XVII

The SAGAMORE XVII conference was held in Hokkaido, Japan, from July 15 through July 20, 2012. This conference is held every three years under the IUCr Commission on Charge, Spin and Momentum Densities, providing an international forum for participants to present latest results, exchange ideas and build up new collaborations. The 17th SAGAMORE conference has featured "Great Potentials from Advanced Probes," and discussed the applications of synchrotron radiations, neutrons, electrons, muons and XFELs to the charge, spin and momentum density studies.

SAGAMORE XVII is a success, with 92 participants from 15 countries worldwide. The number of overseas participants are 48, consisting of 9 (France), 7 (USA), 6 (Poland), 5 (Taiwan, R.O.C), 5 (Germany), 3 (Switzerland), 3 (Russia), 2 (Canada), 2 (Finland), 2 (Denmark), 1 (Italy), 1 (Australia), 1 (Turkey) and 1 (Korea). The number of participants within Japan is 44. Half of the domestic participants are first participation in the SAGAMORE conference, showing that SAGAMORE XVII has certainly contributed to the growth of this community in Japan.

The program was composed of welcome addresses, key note lecture, scientific oral and poster session, and closing remarks. On the evening of Monday 16th July, we had a special session in honor of Richard Bader. The key note lecture, entitled "SACLA has emerged," was presented by Tetsuya Ishikawa (Director, the RIKEN SPring-8 Center). The oral sessions were addressed to "Century's Pioneers in Charge, Spin Momentum Density," "Introductory Talk on Quantum Beam Techniques," "Prospects in Charge Spin & Momentum Density I & II," "Challenge in Dynamics & Kinetics," "XFEL Science: Application to Materials Science and Biology," "Novel Magnetism & Multi Ferroics," "Chemical Bonding & Exotic Intermolecular Interactions" and "What do theoreticians expect from experimentalist and vice versa?" The poster session was held on 17th and 19th July. The scientific program included 42 invited talks and 39 poster presentations. Two-minute long talk was given to each poster presenter in Minute-long Oral for Poster Session.

We made "Beautiful Poster Award" to encourage young scientists. Session chairs and selected participants evaluated the posters from the point of well-organized layout with brilliant figures, tables and descriptions, as well as scientific quality. Three young scientists from Finland, Russia and Japan were awarded.

SAGAMORE XVII was hosted by the RIKEN SPring-8 Center and the RIKEN Harima Institute, and co-hosted by Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute; Comprehensive Research Organization for Science and Society, Research Center for Neutron Science and Technology; Institute of Materials Structure Science, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization; J-PARC Center; The Crystallographic Society of Japan, and National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center. Financial support was received from the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). Other sponsors include Rigaku and Northern Science Consulting.

SAGAMORE XVII financially supported nine young scientists, including eight overseas and one domestic. The fund of 6,000 US$ from IUCr was used to support the travel and accommodation expenses of the nine young scientists. The bank commission charge was covered by the other resource.

The next SAGAMORE conference will be held in Italy in 2015 or 2016, chaired by Prof. Carlo Gatti (CNR-ISTM, Milano, Italy).

The detail of SAGAMORE XVII is at the SAGAMORE XVII website (http://rsc.riken.jp/sagamore/home/index.html).