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EAS News
EWASS 2019: the culmination of an especially good year for the EAS
Closing Ceremony speech by EAS Vice-Presidents
The Annual Meeting of the European Astronomical Society, EWASS 2019, took place from 24 to 28 June 2019 in Lyon, and was attended by about 1200 participants. The two EAS Vice-Presidents, Sara Lucatello and Sofia Feltzing, closed EWASS 2019 by presenting their impressions of the meeting and summarising the highlights of the Society's year which has been a particularly important one.
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We think you would agree with us that this has been a great meeting - yes, it was hot, and yes, some screens were too small and a bit blurry - but overall, when we walk around and listen to people, this has been a happy conference. The building and its layout have given us a few chances to go amiss in our navigation towards a room on the third floor or finding the next bathroom. But there is always another conference participant ready to share their best tip of which stairs to use, how to most quickly get to the cool exhibition area etc. Thanks to all of the participants for contributing to such a good spirit and to a successful EAS annual meeting.
This has been an especially good year for the EAS. We have implemented a new membership scheme, in which scientists can become members through their national society, without any extra fee. This has not only has increased the membership to over 2500, but also considerably strengthened our relationship with the national societies. Several of these societies are also providing support to the EAS representation in Brussels. Earlier this year EAS, together with ESA, organised both an exhibition as well as a small set of talks in Brussels to bring information and awareness to the parliamentarians about curiosity driven science and its impact on society. The event was a success and we are planning for a follow up in 2020, focusing on exoplanet science.
We are also happy to announce that the Slovenia and Hungary are now represented as Affiliated Societies to the EAS. We have three new Organisational Members: CTA, the Finnish Astronomical Society and the Fritz Zwicky Foundation. Together with the other organisational members, the exhibitors and the sponsors they have been a tremendous support to make EWASS happen. A particular thanks to one of the most generous sponsors, the MERAC foundation. In the past year, the Society has established the IAU E-ROAD office and also had its first "Inclusion Day" as part of EWASS. Both initiatives will be topics for Special Sessions at the EAS Annual Meeting 2020 in Leiden.
The scientific content of the conference has been outstanding. This is of course thanks to all the speakers, whom we are very grateful to, but also to the work of the SOC and all the small SOCs from the individual Symposia and Special Sessions. Thank you very much. A particular acknowledgement to Philippe Pruignel and Elena Pian who have expertly led the SOC in the difficult task of building a program showcasing the cutting-edge research that goes on in Europe and in the world. Thank you from the EAS Council and from all the EAS members.
That a meeting of this size runs smoothly takes many hands behind the scenes. A big thank you to all the local helpers (the purple shirts), without whom there would be no filled up water, no slides projected and much more. We would also like to thank Kuoni for all the work they have been doing for this meeting: from managing the communication with the delegates, to taking care of the conference dinner buses, to rearranging the schedule and logistics on account of the extreme weather,... pretty much at every stage Kuoni has been working to make things run smoothly. Thanks to Frank and Audrey, and especially to Laurie, who has been tirelessly running around before and during the meeting. And thanks to Edina, Clémence, Cécilia.
Also, we'd like to especially mention Cedric, who has coordinated the technical support and has developed the very successful ePoster platform for this meeting. He has gone above and beyond by providing on-line support outside office hours to the ePoster authors. Thank you so much.
When the president opened the meeting he wanted us to, during this week, reflect on how astronomy fits into a "bigger picture", not only why it is good for society but how it benefits other sciences. During this week we have been given some examples of this in the plenary lectures and the Special Sessions. Take those examples back home with you and see how you can enhance interactions locally with fellow physicists, geologists, biologists and others. We, astronomers, fit into the big picture. We just need to help our fellow scientists be aware of that.
After handing over the "baton" to the organisers of the next EAS meeting (Anthony Brown), we wish you a good last half day of sessions and good travel back home. Goodbye and see you next year in Leiden!
Sara Lucatello and Sofia Feltzing
EAS Vice-Presidents
EAS News
EAS 2020 in Leiden, 29 June - 3 July 2020
Proposals for Symposia, Special Sessions, and Lunch Sessions due 15 September 2019
The European Astronomical Society Annual Meeting, previously known as the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS), will take place in Leiden, the Netherlands, from 29 June to 3 July 2020. The meeting is organized by the EAS in collaboration with the Royal Dutch Astronomical Society (KNA). The venue, the Event & Convention Center and the Holiday Inn, is located near the city center. We invite proposals from colleagues who are interested in organising a Symposium, a Special Session, or a Lunch Session at EAS 2020. All details can be found at this page. The deadline for submitting Expressions of Interest is Sunday 15 September 2019.
EAS News
Call for nominations for EAS Prizes
Deadline 30 September 2019
EAS Council invites EAS members to nominate suitable candidates for the different EAS Prizes. The Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded annually in recognition of the development or exploitation of European instruments, or major discoveries based largely on such instruments. The MERAC Prizes for Best Doctoral Thesis are awarded to recognize and support young European astronomers. The Fritz Zwicky Prize for Astrophysics and Cosmology is a new biannual prize to recognize scientists who have obtained fundamental and outstanding results related to astrophysics and cosmology.
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Short biographies of previous years' awardees and full details regarding the different EAS Prizes can be found on the EAS website:
Nominations can only be made by EAS members and need to be endorsed by 2 persons, at least one of them being an EAS member. Nominations are only accepted through a web form accessible for EAS members. The deadline for nominations for all EAS Prizes is Monday 30 September 2019. Note that self-nominations are not allowed.
EAS News
Hungary and Slovenia new EAS Affiliated Societies
Reminder: free EAS membership for all opting-in members of EAS Affiliated Societies
The EAS has two new Affiliated Societies: the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), and the Society of Mathematicians, Physicists and Astronomers of Slovenia (DMFA). EAS welcomes these new Affiliated Societies. Council wishes to remind all European astronomers of the new EAS membership scheme, in which opting-in members of EAS Affiliated Societies receive free membership if they qualify for the EAS membership requirements. In particular, Council encourages EAS Individual Members to contact their Affiliated Society to take advantage of this new membership scheme.
EAS News
New Organisational Members for the EAS
Fritz Zwicky Foundation, CTA, and the Finnish Astronomical Society
The EAS welcomes three new Organisational Members. Created in 2011, EAS Organisational Members are either public or private entities which play an important role in European astronomy and express through their membership their support to the community of astronomers. A vibrant community is indeed essential to develop and keep a vigorous program of astronomical research in Europe.
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The Fritz Zwicky Foundation (FZS) and the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) have become new EAS Organisational Sponsors. The Fritz Zwicky Foundation was established in 1973, and holds and manages Fritz Zwicky's entire estate. The Foundation's objective is to conserve and manage Fritz Zwicky's lifework. The FZS funds a new biannual prize, the Fritz Zwicky Prize for Astrophysics and Cosmology, which will be awarded for the first time in 2020.
CTA is the next generation ground-based observatory for gamma-ray astronomy at very-high energies, with more than 100 telescopes to be located in the northern and southern hemispheres. Building on the technology of current generation ground-based gamma-ray detectors (H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS), CTA will be ten times more sensitive and have unprecedented accuracy in its detection of high-energy gamma rays.
Finally, through its support to the EAS representative in Brussels, the Finnish Astronomical Society (FAS) has become an EAS Organisational Affiliate. The FAS was established in 1969 and includes over a hundred members. The members consist of professional astronomers and students, in addition to former professional astronomers who have moved on to teaching or outreach-related activities. The main task of the society is to promote astronomical research in Finland, and to connect astronomers working in different universities in Finland.
Contributed News
Exploring the time-domain phase space from current surveys to LSST
EWASS 2019 Symposium 1
This Symposium aimed to bring together the time-domain community, observers, modelers, theoreticians and software developers to discuss results from synoptic surveys, how sophisticated software frameworks can be used to mine life-streams in real-time and new strategies for classifying transients. The Symposium spanned six sessions over two days, with ~80-100 participants attending each session.
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The past decade in transient science was characterised by unparalleled efforts of optical synoptic surveys, such as ASASSN, ATLAS, PanSTARRS and PTF, to explore the entire transient phase-space systematically. In spring 2018, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) started its science observations and joined these efforts. The public ZTF survey monitors the entire northern hemisphere every three nights in g and r and the Galactic plane every night in g and r to a depth of 20.5 AB-mag resulting in up to 100-150 epochs per year. New transient-surveys, such as ZTF, will detect several 100,000 up to a million transient sources, pushing data volume and alert rate to a new order of scale. These combined efforts will allow studies from cometary outbursts and asteroid collisions, to infant supernovae and failed GRB jets, Be stars and ultra-compact binaries, via interaction with super-massive black-holes, to cosmology and hence lead to a revolution in transient science.
Each of the six blocks was dedicated to a different topic.
The first session focused on supernovae that were merely a few days old at the time of discovery. The early evolution of these infant SNe is becoming a new frontier field in astronomy. The early-phase of SNe is highly sensitive to circumstellar material in the proximity of the progenitor, the elusive final evolutionary history of progenitor just before the explosion, and how the star exploded. After a few days, this information gets wiped out by the expanding SN ejecta. This session summarised the current understanding of the late-time evolution of massive stars before explosion and results from observational studies of infant supernovae.
The second session presented ongoing investigations on unusual transients. Deep synoptic surveys allow finding and following up new and rare kinds of transients. In this session, we discussed why multi-messenger astronomy (neutrinos and GWs) opens up an entirely new field in astronomy and discussed results on rapidly-evolving rare transients, tidal disruption events, as well as odd transients of known transient sub-classes.
The third session was dedicated to statistical samples of transients. In the past, transient science was tailored towards individual objects and small samples. In recent years, this paradigm began to shift towards building up large and homogenous samples to characterise ensemble properties of transient classes and to use transients as tools for cosmology. In this session, we heard about the prospects of LSST for time-domain astronomy, results from cosmology with type Ia SNe, and ensemble properties of core-collapse supernovae.
The fourth session focused on variable stars in synoptic surveys. Results were presented on a variety of pulsating stars, novae, different types of eclipsing binaries as well as the properties of flaring stars which might host exoplanets.
The fifth session was dedicated to alert brokers. The skill to mine alert streams for certain classes of transients is becoming imperative for any time-domain astronomer. In this session, we heard how one of these alert brokers work and also about novel frameworks to classify and transients.
The sixth session was an open discussion led by the IAU SN working group on how to communicate, share transients for LSST-scale surveys, prospects for future large scale surveys (like LSST), and transient classification strategies in the LSST era.
Each session started by 1-2 invited talks, was followed by contributed talks on recent results closed with poster presentations. In total, we had 6 invited talks and 18 contributed talks. We aimed for gender balance by giving each gender half of the slots for talks and chairs in the SOC. Unfortunately, only 33% of the contributed talks were given by women in this traditionally male-dominated field of research. We highly encourage women to join this rapidly evolving field of astronomy.
Jakob Nordin (DESY, Germany)
Kate Maguire (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
Mickael Rigault (CNRS/IN2P3, France)
Nadejda Blagorodnova (Radboud University, The Netherlands)
Steve Schulze (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 1 website
Contributed News
Quasars in cosmology
EWASS 2019 Symposium 2
We gathered for the first time scientists who propose various methods of using quasars as probes of the properties of the Universe. We covered the use of quasars as standard rulers (BAO, strong lensing) and standard candles (reverberation methods, selection of quasars at Eddington luminosity,
UV-Xray nonlinear relation).
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We also included the indirect use of quasars through studies based on the Lyman alpha forest. Finally, the issue of the first quasars and their role in the reionization epoch was discussed, as well as the important issue of the black hole growth as a function of cosmic time, with strong constraints from very massive quasars at large redshifts. We also touched other related issues like processes affecting the dynamics of the Broad Line Region which, in turn, affect the measurement of black hole masses. This topic is important in the studies of quasar evolution.
The Symposium was very well attended: although it was one of the hottest rooms, room 303 was full, and we had some equally hot discussions. The most important scientific result is that quasar studies support the departure from the standard ΛCDM cosmology (arguments based on strong lensing and UV/X-ray nonlinear relation). The result can be strengthened in the future as other methods of measuring the expansion of the Universe with quasars are also rapidly progressing. The formation of first quasars and the role of quasars during the reionization epoch is not yet clear. However, new observational data will be coming, e.g. from e-ROSITA, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, Euclid, the James Webb Space Telescope, or WFIRST.
Edi Bon (Astronomical Observatory, Belgrade, Serbia)
Natasha Bon (Astronomical Observatory, Belgrade, Serbia)
Bozena Czerny (Center for Theoretical Physics, Warsaw, Poland)
Elisabeta Lusso (Durham University, UK)
Paola Marziani (INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy)
Mauro D'Onofrio (Department of Astronomy, University di Padova, Italy)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 2 website
Contributed News
The Universe in the first billion years
EWASS 2019 Symposium 3
The most intriguing question of modern extragalactic astronomy is to locate and study the first galaxies in order to determine when they emerged from the dark ages, what are their physical properties and what role do they play in governing the transition of intergalactic hydrogen from a neutral state to one that is ionised. With this two-day Symposium, we brought together a diverse community of researchers working in both theory and observations.
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In the past few years, our knowledge of the early Universe has increased significantly. Measures of the optical depth of electron scattering by the Planck satellite indicates this 'cosmic reionization' was a fast process occurring relative late around z~8. Observations of galaxies at z>8 across the electromagnetic spectrum have given us break-through insights into their abundance and properties. Together with recent results on the global 21cm signal from the EDGES experiment, these observations demonstrated that the first galaxies may have formed at z>15 and have opened up a completely new observational window on the era of Cosmic Dawn. With insights gained from simulations and theoretical models, they provide an unprecedented opportunity to explore and understand the nature of the first stars, galaxies and black holes in the Universe.
Our program consisted of:
- Theory and observations of the first generations of galaxies and stars
- Observations and models of the highest-z galaxies: preparation for JWST / ELT
- Synergising theory and observations of ionizing photons and the reionization
- Predictions for the 21cm signal: high-redshift sources, the intergalactic medium and the nature of dark matter
- The observational 21cm signal: hints on Cosmic Dawn and Reionization
- Looking to the future: synergising 21cm and distant galaxies observations
We had nine invited speakers, Benedetta Ciardi, Andrea Ferrara, Anastasia Fialkov, Michel Fioc, Myoungwon Jeon, Harley Katz, Raul Monsalve, Pascal Oesch, Joki Rosdahl, covering topics from 21cm radiation over high redshift galaxy observations to ionizing escape fractions in simulations. One of the presentations was given remotely to allow a parent with childcare duties to take part in the conference, which was very well received among all participants. In addition, we had 24 short contributed talks and 10 poster presentations, representing the broader high-redshift community. Despite the heat, the Symposium was well-attended with 50-70 participants.
Anne Hutter (Groningen University, The Netherlands)
Anna Schauer (University of Texas, USA)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 3 website
Contributed News
Cosmology and multi-messenger astrophysics with Gamma-Ray Bursts
EWASS 2019 Symposium 4
Symposium 4 provided a very timely opportunity to bring together specialists working on GRB-related fields from both theoretical and observational perspectives. In early 2019, the LIGO and Virgo observatories started their third run of operations, following the previous two successful runs which led to a huge leap forward in our understanding of fundamental physics through the discovery also of the first neutron star-neutron star merger and the associated electromagnetic emission in the form of a short GRB. The EWASS 2019 was thus perfectly suited to check the preliminary new results and discuss the exciting future perspectives to come in the closer as well as in the far future.
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As part of the future perspectives, a section of the event was focused
on the description of the instrument and science goals
of the Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor, THESEUS, one
of the three mission candidates selected by the European Space Agency to
compete for a launch of opportunity in 2032 within the M5 slot. THESEUS
is currently undergoing a study phase that will be concluded in 2021
when only one of the three candidates will be down-selected for
implementation and launch. The EWASS provides the perfect environment to
present THESEUS to a wide and diverse community, illustrating the
enormous potentialities of the mission in the field of cosmology,
multi-messenger astrophysics, and fundamental physics.
The program comprised many exceptional invited talks and excellent
contributed talks, with a total attendance that vastly exceeded the
initially foreseen participation. The event greatly benefitted from the
interventions of many esteemed colleagues, who gave their suggestions on
how to widen further the international scientific interest in THESEUS
exploiting the unprecedented capabilities of the mission.
We are particularly grateful to all our speakers and the numerous
attendees, contributing in making Symposium 4 a success. We also warmly thank
all the EWASS organisation to help us setting up such inspiring Symposium.
Lorenzo Amati (INAF - OAS Bologna, Italy)
Enrico Bozzo (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
Andreja Gomboc (University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia)
Diego Gotz (CEA-IRFU, France)
Mimoza Hafizi (University of Tirana, Albania)
Paul O'Brien (University of Leicester, UK)
Giulia Stratta (INAF - OAS Bologna, Italy)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 4 website
Contributed News
Dynamics of disc galaxies in the era of large surveys
EWASS 2019 Symposium 6
We live in the era of the advent of large surveys which target numerous galaxies or stars with superb quality, and we are witnessing a revolution in our understanding of galaxy evolution. This Symposium aimed at bringing together experts in all aspects of galaxy disc dynamics to review the recent observational, analytical, and numerical results, as well as the prospect for the immediate future.
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It has long been known that bar and spiral instabilities are major agents in driving the internal secular evolution of disc galaxies, whereas interactions with external galaxies are responsible of major changes in the organized disc dynamics. Precious information is contained in the so-called vertical structure, i.e., the off-plane dynamics: discs may heat up and thicken, bars and spiral arms develop vertical instabilities, and polar inner discs may be formed. This vertical structure host fossil remnants of the past galaxy evolution: thick discs are prevented against bar development, buckled bars may form box/peanut structures, bending modes can be the result of interaction with external perturbers, and polar structures may indicate a past interaction with an external galaxy.
It is now possible to study all these effects given the large amount of galaxies spectroscopically mapped with large integral-field spectroscopic surveys, such as CALIFA, SAMI, and MaNGA. In the Milky Way, Gaia is already providing unprecedented details on the kinematic signatures of dynamical perturbations of the Galactic disc. Such observational development is challenging the fields of numerical simulations and analytical modeling of disc dynamics, which need to account for the pieces of evidence provided by the observational data.
Our session was split into 6 sub-sessions covering the main aspects of disc galaxy dynamics and consisting of an invited review talk followed by shorter presentations. Sub-session topics were focused on spiral arms dynamics, galactic bars, gas dynamics, discs in their environment, chemodynamical processes and a focus on the Milky Way. Our review talks were given by researchers in their early career: Jean-Baptiste Fouvry (spiral arms, IAS, USA), Francesca Fragkoudi (bars, MPA, Germany), Mattia Sormani (gas dynamics, ITA/ZAH, Germany), Chervin Laporte (environment of galactic discs, University of Victoria, Canada), Anaëlle Hallé (chemodynamical processes, Paris Observatory, France) and Teresa Antoja (Milky Way disc, Barcelona, Spain). The symposium also contained three poster presentation sessions were the presenters were given a 3-minutes slot to provide a greater exposure to their work.
Arnaud Siebert (Strasbourg, France)
Adriana de Lorenzo-Cáceres (IAC, Spain)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 6 website
Contributed News
Cosmic dust (r)evolution
EWASS 2019 Symposium 7
Symposium 7 aimed to bring together researchers with a wide range of experience in the field of interstellar dust grains. Dust is ubiquitous in the interstellar medium and known to influence every aspect of the evolution of the media in which it is embedded. The goal of this Symposium was to discuss all aspects of the dust life cycle from astrophysical, chemical, and mineralogical points of view.
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In recent years, multiwavelength data with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution have made it possible to make great strides in terms of observational constraints on dust (Planck, Herschel, ALMA, and in the future JWST, SKA, SPICA). In particular, it is now possible to trace dust evolution from the most diffuse regions to the centre of molecular clouds and protoplanetary discs.
The first session was chaired by M. Juvela (University of Helsinki, Finland) and aimed to assess the current state of observational constraints on grains as well as on the gas-to-dust mass ratio. Our two invited speakers (S. Sadavoy, SAO, USA, and A. Jones, IAS, France) as well as the two contributed talks (F. Galliano, CEA, France, and J. Dawson, Macquarie University, Australia) made it very clear that dust is not the same everywhere and that its evolution is linked to variations in the dust-to-gas mass ratio. R. Lallement (GEPI, France) later presented an amazing 3D map of the Galactic dust.
C. Kemper (ESO, Germany & ASIAA, Taiwan) moderated the second session on the formation of grains in evolved stars, supernovae remnants, and luminous blue variables. After a great review by M. Matsuura (Cardiff University, UK), three contributed talks gave the latest updates about dust formation and survival in the Milky Way and in high redshift galaxies, a crucial but still open question (C. Agliozzo, ESO, Germany; D. Gobrecht, Institute of Astronomy, Belgium and F. Priestley, UCL, UK). The session ended with a series of poster flash talks.
K. Gordon (STScI, USA & Ghent University, Belgium) animated the third session about dust properties in nearby galaxies. Very interestingly, our guest's review (M. Smith, Cardiff University, UK) and the three contributed talks (J. Roman-Duval, STScI, USA; P. De Vis, Cardiff University, UK; and J. Chastenet, U. of CA-San Diego, USA) perfectly showed that the variations observed at the scale of a few clouds in the Milky Way are found at the scale of galaxies.
N. Ysard (IAS, France) chaired the fourth session in which the link between laboratory experiments, dust modelling and astronomical observations was made. C. Jäger (MPIA, Germany) gave a review about the state-of-the-art of laboratory experiments on dust which was followed by three contributed talks highlighting how much laboratory knowledge is needed to correctly analyse astronomical observations (S. Zeegers, ASIAA, Taiwan; L. Fanciullo, ASIAA, Taiwan, and M. Saajasto, University of Helsinki, Finland).
I. Ristorcelli (IRAP, France) moderated the fifth session about dust polarisation from the diffuse interstellar medium to protoplanetary discs. Two excellent review talks by A. Maury (CEA, France) and F. Ménard (IPAG, France), as well as two complementary and very interesting contributed talks (R. Siebenmorgen, ESO, Germany and M. Galametz, CEA, France), showed how much progress has been made regarding the characterisation of the dust polarised emission and in particular how powerful it could be to trace variations in the dust size distribution throughout its lifecycle.
B. Commerçon (CRAL, France) chaired the last session about dust dynamics and growth in dense environments. After the brilliant review of D. Price (Monash University, Australia), three enlightening contributed talks were given (V. Guillet, IAS, France; U. Lebreuilly, CRAL, Lyon, France and C. Lefèvre, IRAM, France). All together, our speakers showed how star and disc formations are dependent on the dust grain size distribution, shape, and optical properties, and gave a good overview of the most recent advances on this hot topic.
All in all, this Symposium was a success thanks to the very high quality talks given by all our speakers and the 21 posters presenters whom we would like to thank. Gender balance was reached during this Symposium with 45% female speakers. We finally thank the EAS for giving us the opportunity to organise this Symposium.
Nathalie Ysard (IAS, Orsay, France)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 7 website
Contributed News
Resolving the ionized ISM
EWASS 2019 Symposium 8
Symposium 8 brought together Galactic and extragalactic observers, as
well as simulators and modelers, to discuss recent results that resolve
the ionized interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies from sub-pc to kpc
scales. This ionized gas phase plays a crucial role in the cycling of
baryons within galaxy disks.
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Newly formed massive stars inject radiative
and mechanical energy that serves to both trigger and suppress
additional star formation, and in their end phase chemically enrich the
local environment. These processes are traced through the ionized gas
emission lines, which provide diagnostic information on the physical
conditions (dynamics, chemical abundance, ionization state, density) of
the ISM.
With the revolution in optical spectroscopy brought about by
the advent of many new integral field spectographs (e.g. MUSE, KCWI),
newly established large sample surveys (e.g. CALIFA, MaNGA, SAMI) and
planned upcoming emission line surveys (PHANGS, AMUSING, SDSSV/LVM,
SIGNALS), we can now resolve in detail the structure of the ionized ISM
across many galaxies in the Local Volume with a wealth of emission line
diagnostics. This allows us to connect the large scale galaxy
environments (spiral arm, interarm, bar) with the small scale (<100pc)
physics.
Key topics addressed included mapping HII region gas phase metallicities
both within our own galaxy and across nearby galaxies, latest
advancements in modeling of massive stellar systems and revisions to
photoionzation models, and constraints to the ionization source of
diffuse ionized gas arising from both simulations and observations.
Kathryn Kreckel (MPIA, Germany)
I-Ting Ho (MPIA, Germany)
Guillermo Blanc (Carnegie Observatories, USA)
Laurie Rousseau-Nepton (CFHT, USA)
Evan Skillman (University of Minnesota, USA)
Christy Tremonti (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 8 website
Contributed News
The future of exoplanets: synergy between small-scale and large-scale telescopes
EWASS 2019 Symposium 9
Exoplanets is a consolidated field in astrophysics that keeps growing by the day. We are at the verge of many discoveries, as new instruments and telescopes are in the phase of commissioning or construction. This Symposium was the only session at the EWASS 2019 meeting fully dedicated to exoplanets. In particular, the Symposium emphasized the complementary possibilities offered by small facilities (both in space and on the ground) together with the main workhorses from international astronomical organizations and space agencies.
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The concept of "small facility" is somewhat difficult to define, but we thought it could refer to telescopes (and instruments on them) of up to 50 cm in space and 4 meters on the ground. As recent discoveries show, major advances in exoplanet science very often come from such facilities. Very importantly, these discoveries are triggering new questions that theorists and modelers are pursuing to answer.
In our Symposium, we had a total of 8 invited talks and 22 contributed talks. The invited talks covered a broad variety of observational and theoretical topics, including:
- The main goals and capacities of the ESA/CHEOPS space mission, to be launched towards the end of 2019.
- Perspectives for atmospheric characterization of exoplanets. A review of what questions we will be able to address in the coming decade.
- Star-planets interactions. A summary of the main mechanisms for such interactions was presented, noting their overall significance and possible observables.
- Rotational effects on the icy moons and on exoplanets.
- The NGTS and TESS projects. A summary of the main goals and results of these two exoplanet surveys, and how they complement each other.
- Tidal dissipation, and why it is important to understand it in the solar system to support ongoing exoplanet studies.
- The Early Release Science programme for direct imaging of exoplanets with JWST. As the JWST launch gets closer, we heard about the scope of this approved programme.
- The lessons learned from PicSat for the emerging field of nanosatellites with astrophysical applications.
The contributed talks offered a similarly diverse view of ongoing advances in exoplanet science. It was pleasant to see a combination of junior and senior speakers, and a broad range of nationalities. All in all, the Symposium confirmed that exoplanet science is a rich and rapidly evolving field, and that Europe is playing a key role in its advancement.
Antonio García Muñoz (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)
Thierry Fouchet (LESIA, Paris, France)
Kristine Lam (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)
Alexis Smith (DLR Berlin, Germany)
Isabelle Boisse (LAM, Marseille, France)
Arnaud Cassian (IAP, Paris, France)
Anne-Marie Lagrance (Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, France)
Hans Deeg (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain)
Susana Barros (Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Porto, Portugal)
Petr Kabath (Astronomical Institute Ondrejov, Czech Republic)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 9 website
Contributed News
Feedback during the star formation process
EWASS 2019 Symposium 10
The process of star formation is a multi-scale, highly non-linear process. It involves a complex interplay between interstellar medium gas, magnetic fields, turbulence, radiation, chemistry, and cosmic rays. The rapid rise of computation power now allows to combine these processes in multi-component simulations at large galactic scales as well as scales of young stellar objects. Symposium 10 aimed at providing a state-of-the-art view of this rapidly evolving field.
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The Symposium described the scale-dependent physics of star formation, i.e. from the smallest young stellar object (YSO) scales to the galactic scales and even extragalactic scales. These issues were addressed in two main sessions. The first session focused on the physics of the different feedback mechanisms throughout the stellar evolution, from birth to death, as well as the stellar mass. It also described their effects at molecular clouds scales on the star formation efficiency. In detail, the main subjects/invited speakers were:
- YSO back reaction (jet/outflow, radiative heating), S. Offner (University of Texas, Austin),
- Effect of main sequence stars (stellar winds, ionization), J. Dale (University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield),
- Supernova feedback, T. Inoue (Nagoya University).
The second session was devoted to the physics at the largest scales, and dealt with the question how this feedback affects the galactic star formation rate. A special session discussed star formation in other galaxies also accounting for the back-reaction of the activity in the central region and the star formation history impact for cosmology. In detail, the main subjects/invited speakers were:
- Galactic evolution and other feed backs (AGN, accretion/winds, spiral arms), J. Rosdahl (CRAL, Lyon),
- The galactic star formation rate, M. McLow (American Museum of Natural History, New York),
- Star formation in other galaxies and its impact over cosmology, M. Chevance (Heidelberg university).
The organizers thank the active contribution of the scientific committee: Hector Arce (Yale University), Blakesley Burkhart (CCA New York), Clare Dobbs (University of Exeter), Barbara Ercolano (LMU Munich), Shu-ichiro Inutsuka (Nagoya University), Diederik Kruijssen (Heidelberg University) and acknowledge the support of the national programs of Interstellar Physics (PCMI) and Chemistry and of the national program of Cosmology and Galaxies (PNCG).
Benoît Commerçon (CRAL, ENS, Lyon, France)
Yohan Dubois (IAP, Paris, France)
Pierre Hennebelle (AIM, Saclay, France)
Alexandre Marcowith (LUPM, Montpellier, France)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 10 website
Contributed News
Protoplanetary disks: the birth places of planets
EWASS 2019 Symposium 11
Symposium 11 at EWASS 2019 focussed on protoplanetary disks: the birth places of planets. High angular resolution observations of protoplanetary disks (e.g., with ALMA or VLT/SPHERE) have opened a new door toward understanding the physical processes taking place therein, with implications both on our understanding of planet formation, disk winds, jets, and outflows, and accretion in young stars.
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First images have revealed disk substructures such as annuli, gaps, snow lines, density waves, etc. With this symposium we aimed to present the latest results on protoplanetary disks, their formation, evolution, and properties, in particular linked to planet formation, obtained with top ground and space facilities, and compare them with numerical simulations. The symposium eventually touched upon the novelties expected with future facilities, such as JWST, ELT, and SPICA.
The 6 session blocks touched upon the following topics:
- From cores to disks, the initial phases
- Disk structure and substructures, composition and chemical processing
- Accretion, infall, disk winds, outflows, and jets, incl magnetic fields
- Disk evolution, from protostellar disks to debris disks, via transitional disks
- Planet formation (grain growth, planet-disk interactions)
For each block, an invited speaker provided a 30-minutes overview of the topic, while contributed talks, from PhD students, postdocs, and senior astronomers followed in 15-minutes talks. ePosters were also advertised in one-minute flash presentations. The session was very well-attended, with 60-70 attendees in average, peaking even maximum capacity of the room (about 100). SOC members present at EWASS 2019 chaired each one block.
We thank the EWASS 2019 SOC for selecting this symposium.
Marc Audard (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
Péter Ábrahám (Konkoly Observatory, Hungary)
Phil Armitage (Stony Brook Univ/Flatiron Institute, USA)
Lucas Cieza (Universidad Diego Portales, Chile)
Ilsedore Cleeves (University of Virginia, USA)
Davide Fedele (Arcetri Observatory, Italy)
Manuel Güdel (University of Vienna, Austria)
Willy Kley (University of Tübingen, Germany)
Ágnes Kóspál (Konkoly Observatory, Hungary)
Stefan Kraus (Exeter University, UK)
Hauyu Liu (ASIAA, Taiwan)
Christoph Mordasini (University of Bern, Switzerland)
Hideko Nomura (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
Takashi Onaka (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Laura Perez (Universidad de Chile, Chile)
Dary Ruiz-Rodriguez (Rochester Institute of Technology, USA)
Judit Szulágyi (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Leonardo Testi (ESO, Germany)
Eduard Vorobyov (University of Vienna, Austria)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 11 website
Contributed News
Knowns and unknowns about brown dwarfs 24 years after its discovery
EWASS 2019 Symposium 12
The first brown dwarfs were discovered in 1995. A few thousand brown dwarfs have been discovered in the last 24 years, including proto, young, and old brown dwarfs. The parameter space of known brown dwarfs extends down to a few Jupiter masses, ~250 K, and 250 times more metal-poor than the Sun. Brown dwarfs are found orbiting around other stars and hosting planets, they are variable and have radio emissions. New atmospheric and evolutionary of brown dwarfs and very low mass stars have been developed. This Symposium aimed to bring observers and theorists together to discuss the latest works on brown dwarfs, and seek the future research directions.
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This Symposium was composed of 9 invited talks, 7 contributed talks, and 2 open discussion sessions. A third of our speakers were female. Major research topics related to brown dwarfs were covered by invited talks. Davy Kirkpatrick (California Institute of Technology, USA) kicked off the meeting with a talk on the mass function of brown dwarfs using discoveries from WISE and CatWISE surveys. Then Adam Burgasser (University of California San Diego, USA) talked about using brown dwarfs to study the Milky Way: population simulations, kinematics, and the history of (sub)star.
France Allard (École normale supérieure de Lyon, France) talked about the progress on the development of BT-Settl model atmospheres and using brown dwarfs as molecular and cloud formation laboratories. Ben Burningham (University of Hertfordshire, UK) talked about using retrieval analysis to obtain atmospheric parameters of brown dwarfs. Trent Dupuy (Gemini Observatory, USA) talked about the individual mass measurements of brown dwarfs.
Gilles Chabrier (École normale supérieure de Lyon, France) talked about new perspectives on brown dwarf structure, evolution and formation. Basmah Riaz (University Observatory Munich, Germany) discussed the chemical tracers in proto-brown dwarfs by observations and modelling. Beth Biller (University of Edinburgh, UK) talked about the variability monitoring of brown dwarfs and directly imaged giant exoplanets. ZengHua Zhang (Observatoire de Paris, France) talked about the population properties of metal-poor transitional and degenerate brown dwarfs.
Many brown dwarfs topics were presented and discussed in contributed talks: X-ray and radio observations of ultracool dwarfs (Beate Stelzer), the age sequence of planetary-mass objects and brown dwarfs (Nicolas Lodieu), properties of transiting brown dwarfs (Alexis Smith), young substellar binaries (Per Calissendorff), the rotation of young brown dwarfs (Ray Jayawardhana), a 5D map of the nearest open clusters from high-mass stars down to the substellar regime (Nicolas Lodieu), and new ultracool dwarfs in Gaia DR2 (Céline Reylé).
Topics discussed during the two end-of-the-day open discussions included relatively unexplored fields, new research directions, and future telescopes and sky surveys related to brown dwarfs.
ZengHua Zhang (Observatoire de Paris, France)
France Allard (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France)
Nicolas Lodieu (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain)
David Pinfield (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Richard Smart (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Italy)
Maria Rosa Zapatero Osorio (Centro de Astrobiología, Spain)
EWASS 2019 Symposium 12 website
Contributed News
Jets and disk winds across cosmic scales
EWASS 2019 Symposium 13
Outflows in the form of jets and accretion-related winds arise in a surprisingly diverse array of astrophysical environments, from new-born stars to the hearts of active galaxies. EWASS Symposium 13 brought together researchers from several fields focusing on outflows at all scales, including cataclysmic variables, stars, X-ray binaries and ULXs, gamma-ray bursts, AGNs, and tidal disruption events. Despite the many commonalities between outflow phenomena at different scales, researchers from these fields rarely meet and interact.
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Both jets and winds have been phenomenologically characterised at every frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum, yet many fundamental open questions remain. In the era of multi-messenger astrophysics, with neutrinos being detected from jetted AGNs and some detected gravitational wave events likely being related to short GRBs, the topic of outflows is of wide interest and links most fields of observational and theoretical astrophysics. We also focused on the still unsolved issues of winds origin and launching mechanisms at all scales, involving experts on both the theoretical and observational sides.
In our event we had nine invited speakers, 28 contributed speakers and a poster session, with eight posters presented. The first day was devoted to winds: from cataclysmic variables, to XRBs and ULXs and AGNs. The second day, the focus was on jets, again from nearer objects (XRBs) to sources at distant cosmic scale. To each major topic, review speakers on observations and theory were assigned. A summary talk at the end of the event highlighted the major results and still open challenges.
Despite intensive research, both on the observational and theoretical side, even the simpler, most nearby systems are difficult to explain, as many competing mechanisms can be at play in launching winds. Complex systems, like AGNs, have more emitting/absorbing plasmas, stratified and interacting with each other. Future instruments will help in solving some of the more pressing issues: launching radius of the winds, gas density, etc. Jets are likewise complex, although many progresses in understanding the connection between the jet episodes and the accretion disk have been carried out for the compact objects in our Galaxy.
Elisa Costantini (SRON, Netherlands), on behalf of the SOC
EWASS 2019 Symposium 13 website
Contributed News
Royal Society Publishing photography competition
One of the five categories devoted to astronomy
Following the success of their 2018 photography competition, the Royal Society Publishing's portfolio of journals is organising a new edition of their annual photography competition. It celebrates the power of photography to communicate science and the role images play in making science accessible to a wide audience. This competition is split into 5 categories, including astronomy. The competition is only open to scientists, and is open for entries until 30 August 2019. More details can be found at this website.
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