  As the panel on Planetary Systems and Star Formation (PSF) is fully aware,
the next decade will see major advances in our understanding of these areas of
research. To quote from their charge, these advances will occur in studies of
solar system bodies (other than the Sun) and extrasolar planets, debris disks,
exobiology, the formation of individual stars, protostellar and protoplanetary
disks, molecular clouds and the cold ISM, dust, and astrochemistry. Central to
the progress in these areas are the corresponding advances in laboratory astro-
physics which are required for fully realizing the PSF scientific opportunities
in the decade 2010-2020. Laboratory astrophysics comprises both theoretical and
experimental studies of the underlying physics and chemistry which produce the
observed spectra and describe the astrophysical processes. We discuss four
areas of laboratory astrophysics relevant to the PSF panel: atomic, molecular,
solid matter, and plasma physics. Section 2 describes some of the new
opportunities and compelling themes which will be enabled by advances in
laboratory astrophysics. Section 3 provides the scientific context for these
opportunities. Section 4 discusses some experimental and theoretical advances
in laboratory astrophysics required to realize the PSF scientific opportunities
of the next decade. As requested in the Call for White Papers, we present in
Section 5 four central questions and one area with unusual discovery potential.
We give a short postlude in Section 6.
