Meeting Topic:

The high redshift Universe (z > 6) encompasses the time when Hydrogen was re-ionized, when the first generation of stars were born, lived and died, and when the first black holes were formed and began growing into active galactic nuclei (AGN). This early period is expected to be rich with time variable objects including Supernovae, Gamma-Ray Bursts, Quasars and Black Hole Mergers. The Conference will explore the required observational capabilities to study high redshift transients and how their multi-messenger studies can be used as probes of the formation of the modern Universe.

Meeting Logistics:

This will be a four-day meeting. The first three days (June 23-25) will be a mix of invited and contributed talks, with a panel discussion and posters. The fourth day (June 26) we will make rooms available for participants to hold self-organizing discussions, workshops and meetings that focus on specific conference related topics, future facilities and other related discussions.

Limited support for graduate students and childcare will be available.

Please register your interest for further announcements and details at tdahighz[AT]gwu[DOT]edu

It is our great pleasure to announce the international conference "Latin American Conference on Astrophysics and Relativity", which will be held at Konrad Lorenz University (Bogotá, Colombia) from Jul 7 to 9, 2020. The meeting will cover the latest observational and theoretical results on Relativistic Astrophysics, Multi-messenger Astronomy, and Cosmology. We will have both invited and contributed talks.

Monday, July 6th, will feature a school with four review lectures given by some of the invited speakers providing background into the key topics covered by the conference.

More details can be found on the conference webpage: https://lacar.webflow.io

The registration will open soon and the abstract submission deadline is April 15, 2020.

On behalf of the SOC:

• Alejandro Cárdenas-Avendaño (Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz)
• Daniel Castro (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)
• Lía Corrales (University of Michigan)
• Yara Jaffe (Universidad de Valparaíso)
• Erin Kara (MIT)
• Anne Lohfink (Montana State University)
• Juan Rafael Martinez-Galarza (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)
• Luis Nuñez (Universidad Industrial de Santander)
• Hector O. Silva (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
• Andrés Plazas (Princeton)

BeXRB workshops, with its 4th edition to be held in Valencia on July 27th-29th 2020, have become key meetings in the field. Aiming at giving place to a very broad set of topics and fields of research (related to Be stars in X-Ray Binaries and similar objects), and to create an atmosphere of knowledge sharing and discussion, the need of such a meeting with a ~3 year periodicity is encouraged by the great success of previous editions.

Be stars themselves still represent a challenge to modern astrophysics. When in binary systems, their observation and modelling do not only shed light into our knowledge of the peculiarities of Be stars, but also into a variety of topics of great interest, like physics of accretion, matter and light in extreme conditions, and massive binary star evolution as progenitors of NS-NS or NS-BH systems, primary targets of GW detection in the present times.

Therefore, the intensive study of these objects by the scientific community must keep at the good pace that we have witnessed in the last decade. BeXRB 2020 will try to contribute to push knowledge in the field, promote collaborations, and offer lots of networking options among scientists from very different fields of research.

Key topics:

• Phenomenology of BeXRB transient outbursts in the X-ray domain
• Transient outbursts as laboratories of accretion physics
• Timing studies of Be/X-ray binaries
• Transfer of mass: from decretion to accretion, observation and modelling
• Multi-wavelength observations and their implications
• Population studies: Be/X-ray binaries with white dwarfs and black holes, BeXRB population in external galaxies
• The high-energy gamma-ray connection
• Prospects in the light of current and future space missions and multimessenger astrophysics

For more information, please visit the conference website

With observations of a few targets by INTEGRAL, PoGO+, and X-Calibur at high energies and the upcoming and planned missions of IXPE and eXTP, X-ray polarimetry can provide insights to various physical phenomena that are not currently possible.

The main topics of the event will be current and upcoming instrumentation, observational results from existing missions, scientific principles and theoretical considerations relating to X-ray polarization, and models of possible observations. Observations in other bandpasses are often relevant for modeling and are encouraged.

The invited speaker list is still being finalized but will include talks on magnetars, blazars, supernova remnants, multiwavelength polarimetry of neutron stars, and upcoming instruments such as IXPE and eXTP.

Abstracts are being accepted until 14 Feb. 2020. For abstract submission and registration, see the COSPAR website: https://www.cospar-assembly.org/admin/session_cospar.php?session=893

Science Organization Committee

Herman Marshall (MIT, USA; Main Scientific Organizer), Wayne Baumgartner (NASA/MSFC, USA; Deputy Organizer), Matthew Baring (Rice U., USA), Michal Dovciak (Astron. Inst. CAS, Czech Republic), Hua Feng (Tsinghua U., China), Alice Harding (NASA/GSFC, USA), Kiyoshi Hayashida (Osaka U., Japan), Svetlana Jorstad (Boston U., USA), Phil Kaaret (U. Iowa, USA), Henric Krawczynski (Washington U., USA), Giorgio Matt (U. Roma Tre, Italy), Stephen O'Dell (NASA/MSFC, USA), Biswajit Paul (Raman Research Inst., India), Mark Pearce (KTH Royal Inst. of Tech., Sweden), Paolo Soffitta (INAF/IAPS, Italy), Silvia Zane (U. College London, UK), Shuang-Nan Zhang (IHEP, China)

The event is the ninth in a series of meetings gathering scientists working on astroparticle physics, cosmology, gravitation, nuclear physics, and related fields. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event IWARA 2020, in the presential format, will be transferred to 2021, and named IWARA 2021. This year, in place of the presential event, an online meeting, named IWARA 2020 Video Conference, will be held from 6 to 12 of September, 2020 and will include Live Plenary Talks, Video-Recorded Talks and Presentations, and Virtual Posters Sessions. IWARA 2021 in turn, in presential format, will be held from 5 to 11 September 2021, as originally planned, at the Palacio de Minería, in Mexico City, Mexico.

IWARA MEDIA PLATFORMS

IWARA, acronym for International Workshop on Astronomy and Relativistic Astrophysics - Series of meetings gathering scientists working on astronomy, astroparticle physics, cosmology, relativistic astrophysics, gravitation, nuclear physics, quantum relativistic field theory and related fields. An integrated platform for scientific and academic projects and partnerships. Access the IWARA digital media platforms here: YouTube IWARA Channel, IWARA Platform, IWARA Instagram, IWARA Twitter.

For more information, please visit the workshop website.

SAVE THE DATE.

More information forthcoming or visit website.

We are pleased to make the first announcement of a conference on "Magnetism & Accretion".

This conference will cover a variety of topics, under the theme of magnetism and accretion, including:

• compact binaries with accreting white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes
• disk/jet connections
• AGN and blazars
• proto-stellar systems, YSOs & planets
• GRBs, kilonovae and associated objects
• computer simulations of magnetically controlled accretion and outflows

See the conference website for details and for registering initial interest in attending:

http://ma2020.saao.ac.za/

Registration details and calls for talk and poster paper abstracts will be made in the Second Announcement, expected in April.

On behalf of the SOC, David Buckley and Domitilla de Martino (SOC co-chairs)

SOC: Nicholas Achilleos (UK), Dipankar Bhattacharya (India), Dmitry Bisikalo (Russia), Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud (France), David Buckley (South Africa; Co-Chair), Domitilla de Martino (Italy; Co-Chair), Jean-Francois Donati (France), Lilia Ferrario (Australia), Alice Harding (USA), Theresa Lüftinger (Austria), Pieter Meintjes (South Africa), Carole Mundell (UK), Marina Romanova (USA), Axel Schwope (Germany), Andrew Shearer (Ireland)

LOC: David Buckley (SAAO; Chair), Enrico Kotze (SAAO), Carol Marsh (UCT), Nazli Mohamed (SAAO/UCT), Shazrene Mohamed (SAAO), Stephen Potter (SAAO), Patrick Woudt (UCT)

The Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (THESEUS) is a space mission concept aiming at fully exploiting Gamma-Ray Bursts for investigating the early Universe and at providing a substantial advancement of multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics, currently under Phase A study by the European Space Agency (ESA) as candidate M5 mission in view of a launch opportunity in 2032 (https://www.isdc.unige.ch/theseus).

During this dedicated scientific conference, the THESEUS science case will be presented through review talks that highlight the state-of-the-art knowledge on GRB science, early Universe studies, gravitational wave physics, and transient Universe phenomena. The development status of the instruments on-board THESEUS will be reported and discussed, together with the current assumptions for the mission profile. Contributed talks are expected to enrich the program and suggest further exploitations of the THESEUS instrumentation in many other fields of the modern Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, and fundamental physics. Through this conference, we aim at strengthening the involvement of the community in the project and boost even more the synergies being developed between THESEUS and other facilities operational in the 2030s in the multi-wavelength and multi-messenger domains. The possible use of THESEUS as a general purpose guest observer facility will also be discussed.

The event is promoted by the THESEUS consortium and the Science Study Team, appointed by ESA in 2018, plus the leading scientific Spanish representatives of the THESEUS collaboration.

Science Organizing Committee:

L. Amati (INAF-IASF Bologna, IT; CHAIR); D. Gotz (CEA Saclay, FR; co-chair); P. O'Brien (Univ. Leicester, UK; co-chair); S. Basa (LAM Marseille, FR); M. D. Caballero-Garcia (IAA-CSIC, Spain); A. Castro-Tirado (IAA Granada, ES); L. Christensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark); M. Guainazzi (ESA/ESTEC); L. Hanlon (UCD, IE); S. Paltani (Univ. Geneva, CH); V. Reglero (Univ. Valencia, ES); A. Santangelo (Univ. Tubingen, DE); G. Stratta (INAF-OAS Bologna, IT); N. Tanvir (Univ. Leicester, UK).

Local Organizing Committee:

E. Bozzo (Univ. Geneva, CH); I. Carrasco (UMA); A. Castro-Tirado (IAA Granada, ES); E. Fernández-García (IAA-CSIC); Y.-D. Hu (IAA-CSIC); C. Pérez del Pulgar (UMA); A. Reina (UMA)

For more information, please visit the conference website or email to: theseus2020 [AT] unige [DOT] ch

This symposium follows previous Fermi Symposia at Stanford, CA (February 2007), Washington, DC (November 2009), Rome, Italy (May 2011), Monterey, CA (November 2012), Nagoya, Japan (October 2014), Arlington, VA (November 2015), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (October 2017), and Baltimore, MD (October 2018).

The two Fermi instruments have been surveying the high-energy sky since August 2008. The Large Area Telescope (LAT) has discovered more than a thousand new sources and many new source classes, bringing the importance of gamma-ray astrophysics to an ever-broadening community. The LAT catalog includes supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae, pulsars, binary systems, novae, several classes of active galaxies, starburst galaxies, normal galaxies, and a large number of unidentified sources. Continuous monitoring of the high-energy gamma-ray sky has uncovered numerous outbursts from a wide range of transients. Fermi LAT's study of diffuse gamma-ray emission in our galaxy revealed giant bubbles shining in gamma rays. The direct measurement of a harder-than-expected cosmic-ray electron spectrum may imply the presence of nearby cosmic-ray accelerators. LAT data have provided stringent constraints on new phenomena such as supersymmetric dark-matter annihilations as well as tests of fundamental physics. The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) continues to be a prolific detector of gamma-ray transients: magnetars, solar flares, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes and gamma-ray bursts at keV to MeV energies, complementing the higher energy LAT observations of those sources in addition to providing valuable science return in their own right.

All gamma-ray data are made immediately available at the Fermi Science Support Center. These publicly available data and Fermi analysis tools have enabled a large number of important studies. We especially encourage guest investigators worldwide to participate in this symposium to share results and to learn about upcoming opportunities.

This meeting will focus on the new scientific investigations and results enabled by Fermi, the mission and instrument characteristics, future opportunities, and coordinated observations and analyses.

For more information please visit the symposium website.

Growing Black Holes: Accretion and mergers, 18-23 April 2021, is the seventh in a series of astrophysical conferences held in Kathmandu (Nepal). The meeting will focus on various aspects on accretion onto black holes, mergers of compact objects forming black holes, and jets formed in those systems. Emission of those systems/events in electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves and neutrinos will be also addressed.

This conference will be in memory of Sergio Colafrancesco. Sergio has been among the conference organizers for most of the previous conference editions. He was an internationally recognized scientist, expert in cosmology and astrophysics and a Nepal lover.

Main Topics:

• Black holes of all masses
• Compact object mergers at all scales (stellar mass & supermassive), EM and GW signatures
• Physics of accretion, disc winds and jets -- Galactic systems, IMBHs, and AGN
• Stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs)
• Large-scale feedback: jets and outflows
• Galaxy -- BH scaling relations
• Collapsars: black hole formation and GRBs
• Multimessenger astrophysics
• Mission Highlights and upcoming missions

The conference will be held at the five star Hotel Radisson in Kathmandu, Nepal. The hotel is close to the Royal Palace and within walking distance to the center of the city.

Conference Fee:

The conference fee will be 350 EUR (including lunches, coffee breaks, welcome reception and conference banquet, use of the hotel conference facilities and a sightseeing) if registered before the deadline of 2020.01.01. After that, late registration will only be possible, if any space is left. The fee then is 400 EUR. We strongly encourage early registration and flight booking. A reduced fee of 250 EUR is foreseen for Indian/SAARC scientists and a further reduced fee of 200 EUR is foreseen for students (PhD, master degrees).

Pre-conference school for local students:

A two-day school for local students (April 17-19), which introduces the conference topics, is planned.

Trekkings/Excursions:

There is the option of booking a few post-conference trips, including trekking in Nepal with Everest/Himalaya views, and a one-week excursion to Bhutan. These are not part of the conference, but are organized by external trekking agencies. Strict booking deadlines apply. More information is available here

Scientific Organizing Committee:

G. Beck (South Africa), K. Belczynski (Poland), M. Branchesi (Italy), M. Colpi (Italy), M. Elvis (US), A. Gopakumar (India), K. Holley-Bockelmann (US), A. Ingram (UK), S. Komossa (chair; Germany), J.-P. Lasota (France), R. Morganti (Netherlands), C. Mundell (UK), E. Palazzi (Italy), E. Pian (Italy), L. Piro (Italy), L. Rezzolla (Germany), G. Sivakoff (Canada), A. Tchekhovskoy (US), M. Trenti (Australia), D.R. Upadhyay (Tribhuvan Univ., Nepal), A. Veledina (Finland), A. Zdziarski (Poland), S.-N. Zhang (China) Local Organizing Committee S. Komossa (Bonn, Germany), E. Palazzi (INAF/OAS-Bologna, Italy), M. Trenti (Melbourne Univ., Australia), A. Zdziarski (chair, NCAC, Poland)

Contact nepal2020[AT]iasfbo[DOT]inaf[DOT]it

The event is the tenth in a series of meetings gathering scientists working on astroparticle physics, cosmology, gravitation, nuclear physics, and related fields. As in previous years, the IWARA2021 meeting sessions will consist of invited and contributed talks, poster sessions, and will cover recent developments in the following topics:

• New phenomena and new states of matter in the Universe
• General relativity, gravitation, cosmology
• New directions for general relativity: past, present and future of general relativity
• FRW cosmologies
• Cosmic microwave background radiation
• First stars, hypernovae, and faint supernovae in the early Universe
• Quantum gravity and quantum cosmology
• Gravity and the unification of fundamental interactions
• Supersymmetry and Inflation
• String theory
• White dwarfs, neutron stars and pulsars
• Black hole physics and astrophysics
• Gamma-ray emission in the Universe
• High energy cosmic rays
• Gravitational waves
• Dark energy and dark matter
• Strange matter and strange stars
• Antimatter in the Universe
• High-energy cosmic neutrinos
• Blazars
• Quantum chromodynamics, nuclear and particle physics and new states of matter in the Universe. Heavy ion collisions and the formation of the quark-gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions and in the first instants of the Universe
• Strong magnetic fields in the Universe, strong magnetic fields in compact stars and in galaxies, ultra-strong magnetic fields in neutron star mergers, quark stars and magnetars, strong magnetic fields and the cosmic microwave background
• Laboratories, observatories, telescopes and other experimental and observational facilities that will define the future directions of astrophysics, astronomy, cosmology, nuclear and astroparticle physics as well as the future of physics at the energy frontiers, and topics related to these.

For more information, please visit the workshop website.