Both the United States and the Soviet Union are planning large-scale dense plasma research facilities at a cost of over $1 billion each. These facilities will greatly expand the range of plasmas that can be produced and will pose a number of important questions for fundamental research. As available plasma energies increase, it becomes interesting and important for theorists to consider fundamental processes that can occur and be measured on the correspondingly greater time and length scales and at the higher achievable energy densities. As the only countries now planning such next- generation facilities, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have a major joint interest in this field. This joint workshop, which is being organized by Dr. Richard Morse of the University of Arizona and Dr. Sergey Anisimov of the Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, will be concerned with the theory of such next-generation dense plasmas. The state of the existing theory, and the new theory requirements for understanding these plasmas, will be considered. A central purpose of the workshop is to identify promising U.S.-Soviet research partnerships in this field and to begin preparation of competitive proposals for support of long-term collaborative projects. Because of prior contacts and strong patterns of complementarity of approaches and capabilities in the U.S. and Soviet plasma theory communities, it is expected that joint research in this area would be mutually beneficial. This project fulfills the program objective of advancing scientific knowledge by enabling leading researchers in the United States and the U.S.S.R. to combine complementary efforts and capabilities in areas of strong mutual interest and competence in the field of basic scientific research on the basis of equality, reciprocity, and mutuality of benefit.
