Special Session: "Atomic Collisions in Plasmas" in honor of Ratko Janev

This session will consist of a series of lectures presented by scientists who have been doing research either directly with Ratko Janev or pursuing his scientific legacy. The topics to be covered range from fundamental theoretical developments of the theory of atomic collisions, interactions of atomic particles with surfaces to production and evaluation of atomic and molecular data bases for collision processes in plasmas.

In memoriam: Ratko Janev (1939-2019)

On 31/12/2019 died Ratko Janev, an academician of Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, longtime leader of scientific projects and founder of the Atomic Collision Theory Group at the Institute of Physics in Belgrade. The chronology of his fascinating scientific career testifies that he was a scientist of remarkable reputation and influence on a global scale. He was born in Sandanski, Bulgaria in 1939. He finished elementary school in Bogdanci and high school in Skopje. He graduated in 1963 from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, and received his master’s degree in 1965 from the Faculty of Science, University of Belgrade.

In 1965 he took a job at the Boris Kidrič Institute of Nuclear Sciences -Vinča. He did his dissertation at the Department of Quantum Mechanics of Leningrad State University in 1966 under the direction of prof. Yu. N. Demkov. He received his PhD in 1968 from the Faculty of Science, University of Belgrade.
In 1972 he moved to the Institute of Physics in Belgrade, where he managed to form and lead a group for atomic collision theory. He began his pedagogical work as a professor at the graduate studies of the Faculty of Physics in Belgrade and intensive mentoring work that resulted in the management of 12 master’s theses and 9 doctoral thesis. Topics he dealt with were: dynamics of collision processes of atomic particles (photons, electrons, atoms, molecules), collision processes of atomic particles with solid surfaces, atomic collisions, radiation and transport processes in laboratory, astrophysical and thermonuclear plasmas. During this period he developed intensive international cooperation and was visiting professor at the Paris Observatory in Medon (1974-75), University of Colorado (JILA), USA, (1981-82), Royal Halloway College, Egham, England (1984) and the University of Durham, England (1985). He was the recipient of the 1977 and 1986 Institute of Physics, Belgrade, and Homage: Université Libre de Bruxelles 1978 awards.

In 1987 he continued his career at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. He directed the department for the formation of databases necessary for the realization of controlled thermonuclear fusion. He initiated the IAEA publication series “Atomic and Plasma-Material Interaction Data for Fusion” (Green Books), built databases of atomic and bibliographic data for fusion “ALADDIN” and “AMBDAS”, organized a number of Coordinated Research Projects involving plasma, atomic and material scientist from world renown research centers. These projects had clearly formulated goals that contributed to addressing decades of implementation challenges of the controlled nuclear fusion. They have made a significant contribution to the realization of the final ITER project in the south of France where, with the participation of 35 nations, a demonstration of 500 MW of power gain is expected.

He retired in 1999, but continued his intensive work under the affiliation of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts where he was elected a full-time member in 2000. He was engaged as a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Fusion Science, Tokyo, Japan (1999-2000), Oak Ridge National Laboratory(2000) and at the Juelich Reserch Center, Germany (2000-2002). He received the most prestigious German Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in 2004. Intense collaboration with Chinese scientists followed. From 2005 to 2012, he spent several months each year at the Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics in Beijing. He continued his scientific work till the last moments of his life. In 2019 alone, he co-authored 10 papers. And there are still some to be published in 2020.

Among other significant activities, he was a member of the Advisory Committee on Electron and Atomic Collisions of the Europen Physical Society in the period (1993-1997), a member of committees of 10 international scientific meetings in the period (1997-2008) and a peer reviewer in the journals: Physical Review A, Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, European Physical Journal D, Physica Scripta, Physics of Plasmas and Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.
He has published 7 monographs, 13 book chapters, 27 review articles and 36 invited lectures at international conferences. A list of 606 co-authored papers, cited 9463 times with an H-index of 46 can be found on Google Scholar.

Tasko Grozdanov
Predrag Krstić