CRIS (Catania Relativistic Ion Studies) is a recently established series of topical conferences held every two years in the Catania area, in Italy. The aim of these conferences is to discuss specific hot topics in heavy ion physics.The second CRIS Conference was devoted to the interferometric techniques for measuring the size of nuclear sources as well as astrophysical objects. The thrust of its program was somewhat cross-disciplinary. A historical review of early astronomical measurements, and some current applications in astrophysics were included, although the bulk of the program was...

CRIS (Catania Relativistic Ion Studies) is a new series of Topical Conferences to be held at regular intervals in Catania or in its environs. Aim of the CRIS Conferences is to gather active researchers from several countries to discuss specific hot topics in the field of heavy ion physics.The first CRIS Conference, CRIS '96, has been devoted to “Critical Phenomena and Collective Observables”, a quite hot topic after the recent experimental evidences of a liquid-gas phase transition in finite nuclei found by the EOS and ALADiN Collaborations and the progress made in the understanding of...