Upcoming ESO or ESO-related workshops
A substantial fraction of cosmic star formation happens in star clusters, and binary populations residing in extreme cluster environments are fundamentally different from those in galactic fields. Each binary in a star cluster will evolve through a multitude of interactions with other cluster members. A better understanding of this evolution is required to answer some of the most pressing questions in modern astrophysics, from the origin of black-hole mergers to the characterization of galaxies in the early Universe. Historically, star clusters have always been cornerstones for our knowledge of stellar evolution. With this workshop, we aim to continue this legacy by establishing them as cosmic probes for binary studies. The workshop intersects four main fields of modern astrophysics: star formation, stellar and binary evolution, star clusters and their dynamics, and gravitational wave astronomy. With this scientific overlap, the workshop wants to bring scientists of all of these fields together and facilitate the scientific exchange that will lead to new insights and scientific breakthroughs.
Registration deadline is 31 May (abstract submission), 11 August (in-person registration), 1 September (remote participation)
It is very well established that galactic systems form and evolve in connection with their environment. The stellar mass budget and the appearance in terms of morphology, colors, star formation activity, and gas fraction of local galaxies are strictly connected to the inhabited region of the cosmic web, and to the linked evolution of the dark matter halo they reside in.
The goal of the conference is to explore the intricate relationship between galaxy evolution and the environment by unveiling all the aspects of such a connection.
Registration deadline is 10 April (abstract submission), 31 May (in-person registration)
The study of planet formation and circumstellar discs is experiencing a golden age in which observational and theoretical efforts are accelerating rapidly. The observatories of Chile are at the forefront of the field, with their unprecedented imaging and spectroscopic capabilities. Simultaneously, cutting edge modelling and simulation techniques have ensured that theoretical investigations continue to push at the edge our knowledge of the environment of young stellar systems in which new worlds are born. Chile also contains a highly active community of researchers in this field. In Santiago alone there exists one of the densest concentrations of disc researchers in the world, with expertise spanning overlapping and highly complementary areas of observations and modelling. The goal of this 2-day workshop is to bring together local researchers in protoplanetary and debris discs, planet formation and exoplanets to discuss the current questions that face the field.
Registration deadline is 5 September
With the end of VIRCAM@VISTA operations (first light June 2008, decommissioned March 2023) and OmegaCam@VST becoming a hosted telescope (first light Oct 2011, now managed by INAF), a decade of targeted wide-field imaging at ESO is coming to an end. Both instruments were largely dedicated to public imaging surveys, which have amassed a total of nearly 60,000 hours of telescope time. To commemorate these milestones, ESO organizes a 5-day workshop that reviews the legacy left by these instruments and summarizes the variety of scientific impact that these imaging surveys have on a wide range of research topics in astronomy, both in galactic and extra-galactic science.
Registration deadline is 1 September
The real-time control (RTC) system is a crucial component for any astronomical adaptive optics (AO) system. The computational, and data transfer demands placed on the next generation RTCs for future extremely large telescopes (ELTs) are enormous, and even current systems require skill to implement. The main workshop goal is to gather international AO RTC specialists in order to share and exchange experience regarding the design and implementation of these systems. Such shared experience can be used to improve the design of new and proposed AO systems, increasing their performance and usability. As such, the workshop is aimed at real-time control specialists, instrument scientists and adaptive optics engineers. Although the workshop is focused principally on astronomical AO, attendence of participants from non-astronomical areas is welcome and indeed encouraged to allow cross-discipline discussions to take place.
Registration deadline is 20 September
Metals trace the full evolution of the Universe: from primordial Helium and Lithium in the big-bang nucleosynthesis to all heavier elements produced in stars and explosive events. Determining their relative abundances in different environments, and across cosmic time, reveals the underlying star formation history and gas exchange processes. Recent progress in instrumentation and modelling now permits using metal production and distribution to test our ideas of galaxy evolution at many different hierarchical scales: from stellar clusters to clusters of galaxies. The hierarchical build up of present-day structures at different redshifts can also be followed, which go in parallel with the build-up of stellar and metal mass. These processes are interwoven: during most of cosmic history metal production happens at stellar scales, but metal distribution is effective on spatial scales covering several orders of magnitude. Therefore simulations require exceptional computational power, and tracing metals across cosmic time needs an equivalent investment in observational facilities. In 2013 we held a meeting at the Observatoire de Paris to review the state of the art in all these different research areas.
Ten years later, the time has come to gather the scientific community and discuss the impact of the recent advent of massive spectroscopic surveys (e.g., APOGEE, LAMOST, the Gaia ESO survey, Gaia, GALAH...), the Gaia astrometric mission and the now operative James Webb Space Telescope.
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are the manifestations of accretion onto the supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies, and release vast amounts of energy making them the brightest non-transient sources in the Universe. Moreover, they are considered to play a fundamental role in the evolution of galaxies. Many aspects of the accretion onto the black hole as well as the interaction ("feedback") with the hosting galaxy and the intergalactic medium are not well understood, making AGN one of the key research topics in extragalactic astrophysics.
The state-of-the-art instrumentation that ESO developed and operated in the last decade allowed to tackle some of the open issues of AGN physics. ALMA, the VLT instruments, and the VLTI have effectively helped us gain a better view of AGN fueling and feedback processes across cosmic epochs. In the near future, the advent of new instruments such as ERIS, MOONS, and 4MOST, but especially the ELT, will allow an unprecedented level of detail in the study of AGN. ESO will be at the center of this upcoming wave of new discoveries, playing a pivotal role in understanding AGN physics. Other facilities such as JWST, Athena, and SKA will all play an equally fundamental role. Multi-wavelength synergy across global research facilities will be the key to gaining a comprehensive view of these puzzling objects.
Registration deadline: 29 September 2023
To commemorate its first decade of science operations, the ALMA partnership is organizing a conference that will take a look back at the observatory accomplishments, highlight its latest results and look forward to future technical developments.
The first decade of ALMA has led to many exciting discoveries, and has resulted in over 2800 publications and counting. As ALMA starts on its second decade of operations, it is implementing an ambitious development roadmap that will ultimately quadruple the system bandwidth and vastly improve ALMA's observing efficiency for both continuum and spectral line science.
