Chemistry, astronomy and physics of H3+

Oka received his BS degree in Chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1955 and a PhD for his work on microwave spectroscopy on formaldehyde in Professor Shimoda's lab in Physics of the same University in 1960. He was then a postdoctoral fellow at the National Research Council of Canada, later Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. He joined the University of Chicago in 1981 jointly affiliated to the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. He joined the Enrico Fermi Institute in 1993. He became a professor emeritus in 2003. His research interests are in the areas of high-resolution spectroscopy and astrophysics of molecular ions, in particular, H₃⁺ near the Galactic centre.

Steven Miller is Professor of Science Communication and Planetary Science at University College London, where he is head of the Science and Technology Studies (STS) Department.

As a planetary scientist, Professor Miller’s main interests lie in understanding how the atmospheres of giant planets – like Jupiter and Saturn, and some of the hot, giant exoplanets – couple with the space environment around them. He is Co-Coordinator of Europlanet RI activities supporting ground-based observations to back up space missions, outreach and dissemination.

A former political journalist, Professor Miller researches issues surrounding science and society at the European level. He is Director of the European Science Communication network (ESConet: https://esconet.wordpress.com), author of The Chemical Cosmos: a guided tour (http://www.springer.com/physics/book/978-1-4419-8443-2) and co-author of Science in Public: communication, culture and credibility.

Mats Larsson is professor of physics at the Department of Physics, Stockholm University, and also director of the AlbaNova University Center, a joint enterprise between Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology. He is member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and its physics class, which the awarding institution for the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. He has a long affiliation with H₃⁺ and wrote the first proposal for an experiment with H₃⁺ in the storage ring CRYRING exactly 20 years ago. Needless to say, the situation concerning the recombination of H₃⁺ was also at that time in complete turmoil.

After a study of physics in Wuppertal and Göttingen Professor Schlemmer prepared a Diploma thesis (1986) and a PhD thesis (1991) in the group of Professor J P Toennies at the Max-Planck-Institute for fluid dynamics in Göttingen working on the evaporation of water from a thin liquid jet and on inelastic and reactive collisions in a crossed beam experiment. As a post-doc (1992-1994) at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, in the group of Professor R J Saykally he searched for the origin of the interstellar unidentified infrared bands (UIR) using an IR emission spectrometer. From 1994-2003 he worked in the group of Professor D Gerlich (University of Technology Chemnitz) on the trapping of ions and nanoparticles. After his habilitation he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Technology Chemnitz. During this time they developed the methods of nanoparticle mass determination and light induced reactions as a technique of ion spectroscopy. In 2003 and 2004 he was appointed as an associate professor at Leiden observatory heading the group of laboratory astrophysics. Since 2004 he has been professor for experimental physics at Cologne University. The work of his group focusses on spectroscopy of molecules in the THz and IR regime. In addition they are interested in understanding molecular collisions in various interstellar environments ranging from the cold universe, where eg isotopic enrichment prevails to circumstellar envelops where refractory species are produced at much higher temperatures.