The series of "European Workshops on Collisionless Shocks" has been initiated at the Centre de Recherches en Physique de l'Environnement (named later Centre d'études des Environnements Terrestre et Planetaires - CETP), Issy les Moulineaux, in France, March 1991.

Collisionless shocks are met and/or invoked in a large variety of domains in Plasma Physics and cover different aspects such as:

• Terrestrial and Planetary magnetospheric shocks
• Interplanetary shocks
• Terminal Heliospheric shock: its dynamics and its role on the formation on Cosmic Rays.
• Shocks in solar physics and astrophysics
• Electron/ion foreshock regions; their formation and sources of waves emission.
• Dynamics of cometary "shocks"
• Shocks as sources of radiation
• Macro and micro-turbulence in shocks; processes of shock front nonstationarity and self-reformation; space and time turbulence analysis methods
• Acceleration and heating of electrons and mono/multi-ions populations at shocks.
• Shocks observed in space active experiments
• Shocks dynamics in laser-target laboratory experiments
• Fast, intermediate and slow mode shocks

The purpose of this Workshop is:

1) To bring closer together communities that are working on different kinds of discontinuities/shocks observed in laboratory and space collisionless plasmas.

2) To draw the attention of these different communities on areas where new diagnostics/analysis methods can be adapted to analyze the intrincated behavior of shocks.

3) To bring a better link between observational, numerical and theoretical results. This point is particularly relevant and a certain care is necessary for stimulating the use of appropriate diagnosis in order to improve the comparison.

4) To stimulate the interest of students and young scientists to the physics of shocks. A few tutorial talks will be presented on some specific topics. In addition, the informal aspect of the workshop is one important characteristic, which allows not only to go in more details in constructive remarks/criticisms, but also to encourage young scientists to present their own works. Presentations based on open questions as well as on results recently obtained will be welcome. Time will be dedicated to discussions.

For any information, please contact : bertrand.lembege@latmos.ipsl.fr