Our Profile
  
 Home
 
 OC
 Bylaws
 IAU Structures
 
 Newsletter Issues
 Online Abstracts
 Jobs
 Conferences
 Miscellaneous
 
 Submission
 Subscription
 
 Databases
 Contact

Supported Meetings


IAU General Assembly 2006, Joint Discussion 05:
"Calibrating the Top of the Stellar Mass-Luminosity Relation"

Date: 16 August 2006

The goal of this Joint Discussion is to bring together theorists and observers from the stellar and extragalactic communities to discuss the properties of the most massive stars and the implications for cosmological studies. The meeting will focus on a set of themes that follow from fundamental stellar astronomy, such as mass determinations in binary stars, to recent modeling of atmospheres and evolution, to the significance of massive stars for the ecology of the host galaxy, and finally to a critical assessment of the properties of the first generation of stars in the universe.

Major topics:

* empirical mass determinations of the most massive single stars
* models for massive stars on and off the main sequence
* stability near the Eddington limit with and without rotation
* comparisons of atmospheric and evolutionary masses
* observational efforts to detect, monitor, and analyze massive binaries
* mass and energy return to the interstellar medium from massive stars
* extrapolations to the first generation of stars with ultra-high masses
* the role of hot massive stars during the epoch of reionization in the early universe

Visit the website: http://www.stsci.edu/science/starburst/Prague/.

Back to top


IAU General Assembly 2006, IAU Symposium 240:
"Binary Stars as Critical Tools & Tests in Contemporary Astrophysics"

Date: 22-25 August 2006
Venue: Prague, Czech Republic
Sponsoring Commissions: 26 and 42

Topics to be included range from common proper motion pairs and other "fragile" binaries to contact binaries and star/brown-dwarf/planet systems, with the aim of exploring interests common to all binary star researchers. It is fitting that such a meeting be held in the Czech Republic, since much of the pioneering work on binary and variable stars has been carried out in Central and Eastern Europe for over a century. Our proposal narrative provides a fuller account of the reasons behind this symposium.

The preliminary program for the meeting is available on this website:

http://ad.usno.navy.mil/iaus240/

This program will evolve somewhat as more invited speakers are lined up and schedules adjusted. To complement the invited talks, participants are of course welcome to contribute posters describing their research. Time as been alloted during each session for summary talks on posters appropriate to that session's topics; these summary talks will be given by either the poster presenters themselves or by an expert in the field (such decisions must wait until we find out how many posters will be presented during each session). In an effort to encourage younger researchers, some poster presenters may be invited to give more substantial talks on their research. More details will be posted here as they become available. For further information or to note errors or problems with the website, please contact William Hartkopf at wih(at)usno.navy.mil .

Back to top


planned IAU Symposium:
"Massive Stars as Cosmic Engines"

Dates: 10-14 December 2007

The theme of the conference, provisionally entitled "Massive Stars as Cosmic Engines" and developed by the IAU Working Group for Massive Stars, will be how massive stars shape the Universe from the nearby universe to high redshift galaxies. They form in starbursts, pollute the ISM, inject energy via their stellar winds and core-collapse SN, drive the ISM out of galaxies, polluting the IGM. The major observational constraints at high redshift Lyman break and DLA systems are direct detection of massive stars via their UV continua and stellar winds and indirectly via the ionized ISM. The symposium to-be-proposed will be multi-disciplinary.

Topics:
- New observational studies of massive stars (e.g. Spitzer, HST, FUSE, Chandra, ground-based 8m telescopes);
- New theoretical atmospheric developments including clumping, porosity and magnetic fields;
- Massive star evolution of single and binary stars in different environments including rotation and magnetic fields;
- Colliding wind effects in massive binaries, such as dust formation;
- Massive star interactions with the interstellar medium;
- End states of massive stars: Core-collapse Supernovae and Gamma Ray Bursts;
- Massive stellar populations in nearby galaxies;
- Super Star Clusters and Starbursts;
- Role of massive stars in Chemical Evolution of galaxies;
- Formation of first generation (Population III) stars, re-ionization and early enrichment;
- Lyman break, and damped Lyman alpha systems;

Back to top


Our Bulletin Board may have additional information.