12th International Congress on Plasma Physics

This special issue presents a collection of refereed plenary and review papers presented at the 12th International Congress on Plasma Physics held in Nice, France, 25–29 October, 2004 (ICPP2004).The primary aims of ICPPs are:To advance all fields of plasma physics worldwide.To promote strong linkage with other areas of science in order to highlight the interdisciplinary character of the field.To strongly encourage participation by all members of the plasma physics community, in particular by young plasma physicists, women plasma physicists and plasma physicists from developing countries.The 12th ICPP was organized on behalf of the International Advisory Committee (IAC). About 330 papers (invited and contributed) were presented. These papers covered the four topics:Plasma applicationsSpace and astrophysical plasmasFundamental plasma physicsFusion plasmasMost of the contributions are available online at the following address: http://hal.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ICPP2004/en/.The Congress was underwritten by the Association Euratom–CEA. The organizers wish to thank the main sponsors: the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, the Region Provence Alpes Côtes d'Azur, the city of Nice and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.For this special issue, the Programme Committee selected 41 speakers from about 100 proposals received from the IAC, to present invited talks. Some of them provided a written paper. Refereeing of these papers was conducted by the guest editors, following the normal refereeing standards of the journal.