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Announcements of Upcoming Meetings
Notice that this list is not meant to be all-inclusive, but concentrates
on meetings of potential interest to X-ray, gamma-ray, cosmic-ray, and
gravitational astrophysicists. The HEASARC also maintains a list of on-line proceedings
of high-energy astrophysics meetings.
Updates, corrections, and/or suggestions about meetings should be sent to
drake@olegacy.gsfc.nasa.gov
Other Sources of Information on Upcoming Meetings
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Liz Bryson's list of International Astronomy meetings
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Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Space Calendar
2008 August 20 - 22:
NASA International X-ray Observatory (IXO) Facility Science Team (FST)
Meeting (formerly called `Constellation-X FST Meeting')
2008 September 8 - 11:
7th INTEGRAL Workshop: An INTEGRAL View of Compact Objects
2008 September 17 - 19:
ESA International X-ray Observatory (IXO) Science Meeting (formerly
called `Exploring the Hot Universe with XEUS')
2008 October 20 - 23:
The 6th Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium
2008 October 20 - 22:
6th Chandra/CIAO Workshop
2008 December 2 - 5 (Revised Dates):
Second International SIMBOL-X Symposium
2008 December 7 - 14:
24th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics
2009 April 6 - 9:
The coming of Age of X-ray Polarimetry
2009 September 7 - 11:
X-ray Astronomy 2009: Present Status, Multiwavelength Approach and Future
Perspectives
2008 October 13 - 17:
IAU Symposium 258: The Ages of Stars
2008 November 10 - 12:
Hot and Cool: Bridging Gaps in Massive Star Evolution
2009 January 7 - 10:
American Astronomical Society Meeting 213
2009 June 7 - 11:
American Astronomical Society Meeting 214
2009 January 3 - 7:
American Astronomical Society Meeting 215
High Energy Astrophysics meetings
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NASA International X-ray Observatory (IXO) Facility Science Team (FST)
Meeting (formerly called `Constellation-X FST Meeting')
- Dates: 2008 August 20 - 22
- Deadline for Registration: As soon as possible
- Deadline for Hotel Reservation: 2008 August 5
- Place: Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
In May 2008 ESA and NASA established a coordination group involving ESA,
NASA and JAXA, with the intent of exploring a joint mission merging the
ongoing XEUS and Constellation-X efforts. The coordination group met twice,
first in May 2008 at ESTEC, then in June 2008 at the Center for
Astrophysics. As a result of these meetings a joint understanding was
reached by the coordination group on a proposal to proceed towards the goal
of developing an International X-ray Observatory (IXO).
The coordination group proposed the start of a joint study of IXO. A single
merged set of top level science goals and derived key science measurement
requirements were established. The starting configuration for the IXO study
will be a mission featuring a single large X-ray mirror and an extensible
optical bench with a 20-25m focal length, with an interchangeable focal
plane. The instruments to be studied for the IXO concept will include an
X-ray wide field imaging spectrometer, a high spectral resolution
non-dispersive X-ray spectrometer, an X-ray grating spectrometer, plus
allocation for further payload elements with modest resource demands. The
study will explore how to enhance the response to high-energy X-rays. This
plan establishes an IXO study, which will be the input to the US decadal
process and to the ESA selection for the Cosmic Vision Plan. The IXO study
supersedes the ongoing XEUS and Constellation-X activities.
At a bilateral ESA-NASA meeting 2008, July 15 and 16 in Annapolis this plan
was endorsed by David Southwood the ESA Director for the Science and Robotic
Exploration Program and Ed Weiler the NASA Associate Adminstrator of the
Science Mission Directorate. A letter signed by Jon Morse (NASA HQ
Astrophysics Division Director) and Fabio Favata (ESA Coordinator for
Astronomy and Fundamental Physics Missions) records the details of the
agreed plan.
As part of this plan the Agencies will establish an IXO coordination group
(IXO-CG) charged with the definition of the science requirements for the IXO
study, scientific supervision on the IXO study activities and providing
inputs to the agencies. Further details will be presented and discussed at
planned upcoming meetings including this NASA IXO (previously Con-X) FST
meeting and the ESA IXO (previously XEUS) workshop
to be held at MPE in
Garching, Germany on Sept 17-19. These are open meetings and scientists from
Europe, Japan and the US are encouraged to attend both meetings.
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7th INTEGRAL Workshop: An
INTEGRAL View of Compact Objects
- Dates: 2008 September 8 - 11
- Deadline for Pre-Registration and Abstract Submission: 2008 June 6
- Deadline for Registration and Payment: 2008 July 18
- Place: Copenhagen, Denmark
The main goal of the 7th INTEGRAL workshop is to present and discuss
scientific results on compact objects. Contributed talks and posters
covering the following scientific topics are invited:
* Galactic sources:
- Black hole binaries
- Neutron star and white dwarf binaries
- Isolated objects
- Source populations across the Galaxy
* Extragalactic sources:
- AGN
- GRB
- Source populations
* Other topics:
- Hot topics with INTEGRAL data
- Cosmic ray acceleration near compact sources
In addition to the contributed papers, highlight talks will review current hot
topics in astrophysics and selected topics of prime relevance for INTEGRAL
science:
* Nucleosynthesis observations with INTEGRAL
* The extragalactic background radiation
* Galactic diffuse emission
* The emerging TeV field, HESS, MAGIC, VERITAS, MILAGRO
* The GeV field, AGILE and GLAST first results
* Cosmic ray acceleration outside compact sources
* The evolving Zoo of neutron stars
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ESA International X-ray Observatory (IXO) Science Meeting (formerly
called `Exploring the Hot Universe with XEUS')
- Dates: 2008 September 17 - 19
- Deadline for Registration: 2008 July 30
- Place: Garching, Munich, Germany
IXO, the next generation X-ray observatory, has been selected as a candidate
Large-class mission as part of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme.
Active study of the IXO concept by ESA, JAXA, and NASA is now underway
in preparation for the Cosmic Vision downselection, expected at the end
of 2009. The purpose of this workshop is to gather together members of
the astronomical community with an interest in IXO, to discuss the
science we expect to be enabled by the mission. As well as summarising
the current status of the project, topics to be covered include:
- Evolution of black hole accretion and its relationship to galaxy
formation
- Growth and evolution of large scale structure
- Matter under extreme physical conditions around black holes and neutron
stars
- Dynamics and chemistry of cosmic plasmas
In addition, a major component of the workshop will be devoted to identifying
new science goals and drivers.
-
The 6th Huntsville
Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium
- Dates: 2008 October 20 - 23
- Deadline for Abstract Submission: 2008 July 15
- Deadline for Hotel Reservations: 2008 September 19
- Place: Huntsville, Alabama, USA
This symposium will consist of presentations and posters on all aspects of
GRBs, including: (1) observations of the prompt and afterglow emission in all
wavelength regions, (2) progenitors of GRBs, (3) host galaxies, (4) cosmology,
as related to GRB observations, (5) theory and simulations related to GRBs,
and (6) instrumentation. Special emphasis will be given to early observations
from the GLAST mission, scheduled for launch in June 2008.
This GRB Symposium is jointly sponsored by the GLAST and Swift communities.
The GLAST Burst Monitor team, located in Huntsville, will host the meeting,
thus continuing the tradition of GRB Symposia initiated during the GRO/BATSE
era.
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6th Chandra/CIAO
Workshop
- Dates: 2008 October 20 - 22
- Place: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
This is the sixth in a series of workshops which started in 2001 and is aimed
at helping users to work with the Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations
(CIAO) software. CIAO is the Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) software which was
developed for the analysis of Chandra data. However, CIAO is non-mission
specific (apart from a few instrument tools). More information on CIAO can be
found at CXC. This workshop
will be largely based on CIAO 4.0 which was released in December 2007 and any
software patch available at the time. A summary of the features in the CIAO4.0
software can be found in the release notes.
Initial registration for this workshop is limited to 30 participants. In the
event that the organizers receive a greater reponse than the workshop can
accommodate, other registrants will be notified that they are on a waiting
list.
Potential workshop talks include:
* Introduction to X-Ray Data Analysis
* Introduction to CIAO
* Sherpa: CIAO's Modeling and Fitting Application
* Source Detection
* Statistics in the X-ray Regime
* ChaRT: the Chandra Ray Tracer
* Chandra Calibration
* Analysis of Point-Like Sources
* Grating Analysis
* Analysis of Extended Sources
* Timing Analysis
* Python and S-Lang in CIAO
* Pileup Modeling
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Second International
SIMBOL-X Symposium
- Dates: 2008 December 2 - 5 (Revised Dates)
- Deadline for Abstract Submission of Oral Contributions: 2008 October 12
- Place: Paris, France
Simbol-X is a high energy astrophysics mission dedicated to hard X-ray imaging
and spectroscopy in the ~ 0.5 - 100 keV X-ray band with, for the first time,
excellent angular resolution and sub-microCrab sensitivity. Simbol-X is
jointly developed by the French and Italian space agencies, with a
participation of Germany. The mission has just successfully completed a phase
A study, and is entering in 2008 a phase B development in view of a launch in
the middle of 2014.
The several orders of magnitude improvement in angular resolution and
sensitivity provided by Simbol-X over all instruments which have operated
so far in the hard X-ray range is obtained by using state of the art grazing
incidence optics and imaging detectors in a very long focal length telescope.
This is possible thanks to the use of the new formation flying technology.
This breakthrough in instrumentation power will open a new window in
astrophysics and cosmology, and will offer a very large discovery space.
Simbol-X will, in particular, provide crucial advancements in the two domains
which define the core science objectives of the mission: that of black hole
physics and census, and that of particle acceleration mechanisms.
The first aim of this second workshop, after the first held in 2007 in Bologna,
is to discuss the evolution of the science issues to be tackled by Simbol-X.
Presentations of new results in relation with Simbol-X goals, from operating
instruments and in particular from the recently launched missions Agile and
GLAST, will be encouraged. The second aim is to present to the international
community the advancement of the project from the technical point of view, on
both aspects of instrumentation and on mission implementation.
The meeting organizers can be contacted at simbolx2008@apc.univ-paris7.fr.
-
24th Texas Symposium on
Relativistic Astrophysics
- Dates: 2008 December 7 - 14
- Deadline for Abstract Submission & Early Registration: 2008 October 1
- Place: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Following the tradition of past Texas Symposia the talks will emphasize recent
developments in Cosmology, High Energy Astrophysics and the frontiers between
these and Gravitation and Particle Physics. The symposium will include invited
plenary talks, oral contributed talks and poster presentations on topics,
including:
* Cosmology
* Compact Objects
* Particle Astrophysics
* Early Universe
* Gamma Ray Astronomy
* Active Galaxies
* Cosmic Rays
* Supernovae
* Dark Energy
* Tests of Gravity
* Numerical Relativity
* The Galactic Centre
* Gravitational Waves
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The coming of Age of
X-ray Polarimetry
- Dates: 2009 April 6 - 9
- Place: Rome, Italy
The advent of a new generation of X-ray polarimeters, to be combined with
large area X-ray telescopes, has renewed interests in the X-ray polarimetry,
as demonstrated by the several polarimetric missions recently proposed to
various space agencies. The possibility to have a X-ray polarimetric mission
operating in the near future is indeed concrete, not forgetting that a
polarimeter is one of the candidate instruments to be part of the focal
plane of the International X-Ray Observatory (IXO). After more than four
years from the last X-ray Polarimetry Workshop (February 2004),
the organizers believe it is time to hold a conference
with the aim of discussing the present status and perspectives of
instruments as well as to review and discuss the theoretical models. They
would like not only to gather the community actively involved in X-ray
polarimetry (both on the instrumental and theoretical sides), but also and
foremost to stimulate the interest in a wider community, hampered so far by
the lack of observational perspectives.
-
X-ray Astronomy 2009:
Present Status, Multiwavelength Approach and Future Perspectives
- Dates: 2009 September 7 - 11
- Place: Bologna, Italy
Third in a decadal series of X-ray astronomy conferences in Bologna, this
meeting will highlight the contribution of XMM-Newton and Chandra
observatories, ten years after their launch. Emphasis will be given on cosmic
source multiwavelength studies and associated synergies with major facilities
at all wavelengths, and on the perspectives for future high energy
astrophysics missions.
Other Selected Astronomy, Physics and Space Science
meetings
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IAU Symposium
258: The Ages of Stars
- Dates: 2008 October 13 - 17
- Deadline for Travel Grant Applications: 2008 June 23
- Deadline for Early Registration: 2008 July 15
- Place: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
How old is that star? That is one of the most difficult questions to
answer in Galactic astrophysics. We have ways of determining the ages of
ensembles of stars (groups and clusters), but critical astrophysical questions
can only be addressed if we can estimate the ages of individual stars in the
field. Stellar ages lie at the heart of astrophysics, and stellar evolution
is all about time and how stars change with time. We want to know time-scales
for physical processes such as angular momentum loss, nucleosynthetic
processing, changes in magnetic fields, and the like, or we wish to compare
objects or groups of objects at different stages in their lives. Stellar and
galactic evolution cannot be understood without some knowledge of ages.
If we could pin ages on individual stars we could determine the star formation
history of the Galaxy and its principal components, and we could understand
the physics of low-mass stars much better. The well-studied spin-down of stars
like the Sun and the concomitant decline of observed activity indices makes it
possible to estimate rough ages for individual stars, but the scarcity and
remoteness of older clusters makes calibrating and testing the activity-age
relation problematic.
Ages of Resolved Populations: The discovery and study of multiple
populations of stars in clusters and other resolved objects in recent years
has been a major accomplishment of HST and has led to changing views on how
clusters form and evolve. In some cases there is evidence for multiple ages,
in others for differences in composition. A full and complete understanding
of the nature and ages of groups of stars is vital to stellar astrophysics.
Now is an appropriate time to examine the problem of stellar ages in detail.
It is time to bring together astronomers from the around the world to discuss
the current state of the problem of estimating ages of individual stars and
of populations, where the advances are now being made, and what the near
future offers.
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Hot and Cool: Bridging Gaps in Massive Star Evolution
- Dates: 2008 November 10 - 12
- Place: Pasadena, California, USA
This meeting aims to bridge the gap between researchers studying stars in the
upper blue and red sections of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD). While
morphologically separated, stars occupying these extremes of the HRD are
intimately related via evolution, as well as both having atmospheric
properties affected by extension and stellar wind outflow. At cosmological
scales, like in distant starburst galaxies, the historical distinction
between blue and red stellar populations becomes obsolete, and understanding
the complex relation between the red and blue parts of the HRD is mandatory.
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American
Astronomical Society Meeting 213
- Dates: 2009 January 4 - 8
- Deadline for Early Registration: 2008 September 30
- Deadline for Regular Registration: 2008 November 30
- Deadline for Hotel Reservations: 2008 December 7
- Deadline for Late (Off-Site) Registration: 2008 December 21
- Place: Long Beach, California, USA
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American
Astronomical Society Meeting 214
- Dates: 2009 June 7 - 11
- Place: Pasadena, California, USA
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American
Astronomical Society Meeting 215
- Dates: 2010 January 3 - 7
- Place: Washington, DC, USA
Selected Astronomy-related Technology (e.g., Detectors)
meetings
- None
Selected Astronomy-related WWW, Computational, Data
Analysis, Software or Statistics meetings
- None
Selected Space Science-related Education and Public
Outreach meetings
- None
Page Author:
Stephen Drake
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