Summer 2022 Proposal and Science Workshop

General Information

NICER is a non-imaging X-ray telescope mounted onboard the International Space Station. It is sensitive to X-ray photons in the energy range 0.2-12 keV and boasts the largest effective area of any instrument up to 5 keV, a factor 2 larger than XMM-Newton. It provides timing accuracy as well as CCD-level spectral resolution. NICER's narrow field of view of about 30 arcmin^2, large effective area, and low background results in a high dynamic range of sensitivity. NICER can detect a 10 microCrab X-ray source at the 5-sigma level in a 10 ks exposure. Taking advantage of its host spacecraft orbit and its own agility, NICER can observe any non-sun-constrained target multiple times a day. Thus, NICER is the most versatile soft X-ray instrument in operation today capable of providing spectro-temporal data for a wide range of scientific investigations.

We invite the full astrophysics community to a workshop highlighting the technical and scientific capabilities and strengths of the NICER mission. The workshop will be held virtually on August 31st and September 1st, 09:00-11:00 & 14:00-16:00 EDT. We plan to post the full program of the talks at the end of July.

The program will provide examples of how NICER can further the community's diverse scientific investigations. The NICER Cycle 5 proposal deadline is September 14, 2022.

Registration

Registration is open for everyone at the Registration Page. We will send information on how to connect to the workshop a few days before the start of the meeting to all registered participants. There is no fee to participate in the workshop. We plan to record all presentations for off-line viewing.

Program

The program is still under development and will be finalized soon. Presentation topics will include:

• NICER status and capabilities
• Update on calibration, background handling, and filtering
• General Observer program and proposer best practices
• Time-domain astronomy with NICER
• Multiwavelength and multimessenger astrophysics
• Neutron star systems
• Black holes on all scales
• Non-compact stars
• Comets

All presentations will be recorded.

Invited Speakers

Invited Speakers include:

Riccardo Arcodia (MPE)	Craig Markwardt (NASA/GSFC)
Zaven Arzoumanian (GSFC)	Ethan Partington (Wayne State)
Denis Bodewits (Auburn)	Dheeraj Pasham (MIT)
Peter Bult (NASA/GSFC)	Anna Payne (U. Hawaii at Manoa)
Teru Enoto (RIKEN)	Paul Ray (NRL)
David Espinoza (UNAH)	Claudio Ricci (U. Diego Portales)
Elizabeth Ferrara (NASA/GSFC & UMD)	Ron Remillard (MIT)
Keith Gendreau (NASA/GSFC)	Jingyi Wang (MIT)
Kenji Hamaguchi (NASA/GSFC & UMBC)	Thomas Wevers (ESO)
Renee Ludlam (Wayne State)	Yuhan Yao (CalTech)

Scientific Organizing Committee

The Scientific Organizing Committee consists of:

George Younes, Keith Gendreau, Ron Remillard, Zaven Arzoumanian, Elizabeth Ferrara, Dheeraj (DJ) Pasham, Isiah Holt, Craig Markwardt, Michael Corcoran