Local organizers: T. Lenzer and K. Oum (Göttingen)

Chemical reactions proceed on vastly different timescales. While elementary reaction steps like bond breaking and making typically happen in the ultrafast time regime from femtoseconds to picoseconds, other processes ranging from the simplest bimolecular reactions to complicated biological transformations may take milliseconds or even longer. The environment has a decisive influence on the rate and yields of chemical reactions. Time-resolved experimental and theoretical methods for investigating and simulating such processes are the basic tools of the trade to understand and predict such chemical dynamics.
   This young chemists' workshop intends to bring together experimentalists and theoreticians from different areas of time-resolved reaction dynamics. It will provide a forum to discuss the state-of-the-art in the field and to discover new opportunities for future research. Experimental techniques will involve, e.g., laser and X-ray spectroscopies spanning the femtosecond to millisecond range using various detection techniques like absorption, fluorescence, lensing, photoionization and photodetachment. Reaction media will include gases and liquids, environmentally benign media like supercritical fluids and ionic liquids, as well as biological environments like membranes, vesicles or proteins. Surface reaction studies will also be covered, featuring techniques like evanescent wave and sum frequency generation schemes. Theoretical approaches are very important to interpret experimental results and predict the outcome of reactions, which are not easily accessible experimentally. Techniques will include among others quantum mechanical, quantum-classical and molecular dynamics approaches.

   The workshop will deal with the following main topics:

- Photoinduced dynamics of (bio)molecules in simple and complex environments
- Reaction dynamics in "green" media: supercritical fluids and ionic liquids
- Time-resolved probes of molecular processes at interfaces
- Electron injection, recombination and relaxation on surfaces
- Hydrogen bonding and proton transfer dynamics
- Reactions and energy transfer from the dilute to the high pressure gas phase
- Reaction dynamics in clusters and aggregates