Tuesday 1 April at 9:15 - First Light to the Milky Way: Progress and Challenges in Galaxy Evolution
Richard Ellis (University of Oxford)
Through deep panchromatic surveys with ground and space-based observatories, much progress has been made in tracing the global history of star formation and mass assembly from redshift 6 to the present day. This has been accompanied by detailed predictions from extensive simulations which incorporate the effects of various forms of feedback. Challenges remain in understanding how and when the first galactic sources formed, in inter-relating the diversity of star forming, dusty and quiescent galaxies seen at most epochs, and in defining the processes which govern the subsequent growth of massive galaxies.
Tuesday 1 April at 9:50 - The search for exoplanets
Don Pollacco (Queen's University Belfast)
Since the first extra-solar planets were discovered more than a decade ago the subject has grown rapidly. While it is true to say planet discovery still dominates efforts, observations have become or will soon become sufficiently sophisticated to test models of planet structure and evolution.
In this talk we will discuss the current and planned ground/space based missions designed to discover and characterise extra-solar planets – emphasising the drive towards SuperEarths in the habitable zone.
Wednesday 2 April at 9:00 - Measuring Cosmic Acceleration
Brian Schmidt (Australian National University)
In 1998 two teams presented evidence of an accelerating Universe by tracing the cosmic expansion to more than 1/2 the age of the Universe using a class of exploding stars known as type Ia supernovae. In the ensuing decade the weight of experimental evidence has accumulated such that the standard model of the Universe now includes a component of matter with negative pressure (commonly referred to as Dark Energy) driving the acceleration. But the physical nature of what is causing the acceleration is still a mystery, with no compelling theoretical explanation yet available. To help differentiate the broad classes of models for understanding the acceleration, huge observational projects have been put into motion to more precisely measure the cosmic expansion rate back in time. A decade after its discovery, supernovae still provide the most constraining measurements of the cosmic acceleration phenomenon, but other measurement techniques are rapidly being developed and refined. I will discuss the evidence and constraints on cosmic acceleration, focusing on type Ia supernovae, but including a wide variety of techniques. In addition, I will critically look at what the next 5-10 years of experiments are likely to achieve at clarifying the mystery of an accelerating Universe.
Wednesday 2 April at 9:45 - New insights into magnetic energy release processes
Alan Title (Stanford-Lockheed Institute for Space Research)
The new observational capability of Solar Optical Telescope on the Hinode satellite has illustrated the prevalence of wave motions in the chromosphere and corona and the constant emergence of magnetic flux everywhere on the solar surface. New models of flux emergence and reconnection with previously existing fields provides a scenario for the nearly continuous transfer of turbulent kinetic energy in the subsurface convection to wave and ohmic heating of the upper photosphere, chromosphere and corona
The Solar Optical Telescope on Hinode has a focal plane package that contains a version of the High Altitude Observatory’s Advance Stokes Polarimeter (ASP), a 80 milli-angstrom bandpass tuneable filter, and a set of 5 to 8 angstrom filters. The imaging section records data on a 2048 x 4096 CCD detector. The 50 cm telescope and the focal plane package are diffraction limited and structures as small as 0.2 arc second (150 km on the Sun) can be resolved. The ASP can make polarization measurements with a precision of 3 parts in 10,000. By limiting the field of view image rates of better than 10 per minute can be achieved. This new data is providing a clearer picture of the processes associated with flux emergence from the scale of active regions to granules, and the presence of both longitudinal and transverse fields nearly everywhere on the solar surface.
This talk will discuss and illustrate some of the new discoveries.
Thursday 3 April at 9:00 - Looking for life beyond the Earth
Monica Grady (Open University)
To be added.
Thursday 3 April at 9:45 - Cosmic Vision - where we are now, where we go
David Southwood (European Space Agency)
A description of current status of the ongoing ESA Programme in Science and Robotic Exploration will be given. Then there will be a review of the prospects for the next 20 years following the selection of and the commencement of studies on an array of new missions.
Friday 4 April at 9:00 - The Pan-STARRS project
Nick Kaiser (Institute for Astronomy, Hawaii)
The Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii is developing a large optical/near-IR survey telescope system; the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System. Pan-STARRS will employ 1.8m optical imagers, very large (7 square degree) field of view and revolutionary 1.4 billion pixel CCD cameras with low noise and rapid read-out to provide broad band imaging from 400-1000nm wavelength. The project is proceeding in two phases: PS1 is a single aperture system that has been deployed on Haleakala on Maui and will start a 3.5 year survey in 2008. Suppport for operations is being provided by the PS1 Science Consortium, which includes the UK Universities Edinburgh, Durham and Queen's. The full 4-aperture system PS4 will be sited on Mauna Kea and will become operational following the end of the PS1 mission. The data from Pan-STARRS will be reduced in near real time to produce both a cumulative image of the static sky and difference images, from which transient, moving and variable objects can be detected. Pan-STARRS will be able to scan the entire visible sky to approximately 24th magnitude in less than a week, and this unique combination of sensitivity and cadence will open up many new possibilities in time domain astronomy. A major goal for the project is to survey potentially dangerous asteroids, where Pan-STARRS will be able to detect most objects down to 300m size, much smaller than the km size objects accessible to existing search programs. In addition, the Pan-STARRS data will provide a dramatic leap in data quality and extent over existing wide-field image survey data that will be used to advance our understanding of the formation of the Solar System, the Galaxy, and the Cosmos at large. In this talk I will describe the science drivers for the project; review the technical design, the various scientific goals; and give an update on the progress that has been made in commissioning the first telescope system.
Friday 4 April at 9:45 - Black hole feedback in cool core clusters
Andy Fabian (University of Cambridge)
Radiative cooling of gas in the cores of clusters is in general balanced by energy supplied by the black hole at the heart of the central galaxy. This process likely stems the stellar mass in massive galaxies. How it operates will be illustrated with X-ray and other data. Remaining puzzles and future directions will be discussed.
