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 purpose of this winter school is to present an overview of the progress in major areas of cosmic ray astrophysics and gamma-ray astronomy in recent years, and to provide an introduction to the essential physics and concepts. It will also be an opportunity to bring together both new and established researchers in the field for discussion and exchange of ideas. The programme will cover a broad range of topics within cosmic ray astrophysics and gamma-ray astronomy, ranging from theory/modelling & simulation to instrumentation & observation.

The school is intended for graduate research (PhD and Masters) students and post-docs with an interest in becoming involved in high energy astrophysics (in particular, topics relating to cosmic rays and gamma-rays), as well as early-career scientists already active in the field looking to broaden their understanding. It will comprise of a keynote lecture and six primary lecture series from international experts, plus five highlight science talks to complement the programme. The keynote lecture will be given by Prof Werner Hofmann (Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany).

Please see the website for detailed information about the lecturers, courses and highlight talks: http://phys.cts.nthu.edu.tw/actnews/content.php?Sn=505

Remote attendance is encouraged, particularly for those wishing to attend from outside of Taiwan.

Due to limited availability of seats, those wishing to attend in person should register as early as possible to ensure on-site participation. After on-site spaces are filled, online registration will remain open until 20th December 2020.

Topics :

Cosmic rays, gamma-ray astronomy, particle acceleration and interactions, instrumentation

Keynote talk:

Invited lecturers :

• Werner Hofmann (MPIK)

• Jim Hinton (MPIK)
• Yoshiyuki Inoue (Osaka)
• Albert Kong (NTHU)
• Frank Rieger (ZAH, Heidelberg/MPIK)
• Kinwah Wu (UCL/MSSL)
• Hsiang-Yi Karen Yang (NTHU)

• Hsiang-Kuang Chang (NTHU)
• Kwan Lok Li (NCKU)
• Alison Mitchell (Adelaide/Zurich)
• Ellis Owen (NTHU)
• Pooja Surajbali (MPIK)

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.