This 6th International Workshop in the series starting in 1969 was held at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California from 25-29 October, 1982 under the continuing directorship of Heinrich Hora. The co-directorship of the late Helmut Schwarz who helped found the series was assumed by George Miley. Fred Schwirzke served as the local organizer. Following a commemoration for Helmut Schwarz, Heinrich Hora connnented that the long title of the workshop is originally due to Nicholas Bloembergen, who prophetically envisaged that "related plasma phenomena" such as is involved in particle beam fusion is also of enormous interest to the laser connnunity. The en- thusiastic response of the workshop advisors and the 82 participants from 11 countries supports the need for a continuation of this work- shop-type meeting where an innnediate discussion and documentation of new results and conceptual formulations occurs, a process not possible through the usual journals. The main sponsor of this year's confer- ence was the Fusion Studies Laboratory of the University of Illinois.
Thanks are also due to the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, and the Department of Theoretical Physics, University of New South Wales. The conference was made feasible by the contributions of the partici- pants, and they and their institutions deserve many thanks. Special recognition is due to the Conference Secretary, Chris Stalker (Urbana), as well as to Marie Wesson (Sydney) and to Patricia Vardaro (Monterey).