Astrophysical Shocks: Space Observations vs. Modeling
13-20 July 2008
Venue: 37th COSPAR Scientific Assembly Montreal, Canada
Scientific Event E13
Shock waves play a prominent role in cosmological structure formation, clusters of galaxies, radio jets, gamma-ray bursts, supernova remnants, shocks in the heliosphere, etc., making understanding shock processes a high priority. Our event will address current and forthcoming multi-wavelength observations of thermal and nonthermal shock emission in radio, IR (Spitzer, Herschel), optical (HST, VLT), X-ray (Chandra, XMM-Newton, Swift), and gamma-ray (INTEGRAL, HESS and GLAST) bands. Recent high resolution observations and modeling of clusters of galaxies, AGNs, gamma-ray bursts, and supernova remnants suggest that strongly nonlinear processes in shocks can produce large amplifications of the ambient magnetic field and efficiently accelerate particles. On the other hand, physical conditions in the partially ionized ambient medium are crucial for understanding both the the collisional and collisionless shock processes and are still poorly understood. We plan to bring together approximately 120 experts in shock observations and modeling to provide a broad, multi-disciplinary view of astrophysical shocks, and to encourage new observational programs and new theoretical concepts for interpreting observations. IAU is co-sponsoring the event.
Please register by 17 February, 2008, if you would like to propose a talk.
Weblink: http://www.cospar-assembly.org/
Email: jmp@ast.leeds.ac.uk