Workshops

AHEAD supports the organization of small topic-oriented meetings relevant to the interest of the High Energy Astrophysics community in Europe. Particular emphasis will be given to meetings that: a) strengthen the link between the high energy astrophysics community and other communities (such as the radio, infrared and optical), b) strengthen the synergy between the different current X-ray instruments (i.e. cross calibrations, background and instruments simulations). The exact topics will be decided by the Selection Committee and announced in the AHEAD site. This will allow to optimize the topic taking into account the status of other activities, hardware development and future missions.

2nd AHEAD Workshop “The power of X-ray spectroscopy”

We are pleased to announce that a 3-day workshop on “The power of X-ray spectroscopy” will take place in Warsaw, Poland, during 6–8 September 2017. Please see the webpage for more details:

www.camk.edu.pl/conferences/xray2017

The maximum number of participants is 90. The workshop will be a part of the activities of the Integrated Activities for the High Energy Astrophysics Domain (AHEAD) project, funded by the European Commission.

The deadline for registration is the 15th of June 2017. The deadline for abstracts submission  is the 1st of June 2017. We can offer a number of travel grants covering accommodation in Warsaw and possibly other local expenses. The deadline for grant application is the 1st of June 2017.

 

The workshop will be devoted to selected aspects of both theoretical and observational X-ray spectroscopy, and, in particular, to the upcoming mission Athena. It will include invited talks by:

 

Didier Barret*

Laura Brenneman

Eugene Churazov*

Lia Corrales

Maria Diaz Trigo

Chris Done

Javier Garcia

Efrain Gatuzz

Victoria Grinberg

Yuto Ichinohe

Erin Kara

Anna Lia Longinotti

Giorgio Matt

Missagh Mehdipour

Andrzej Niedzwiecki

Ciro Pinto

Gabriele Ponti

Jeremy Sanders*

Aurora Simionescu

Lynne Valencic

Hiroya Yamaguchi*

Feng Yuan

(* - to be confirmed)

 

The SOC consists of:

 

Enrico Bozzo

Elisa Costantini  

Barbara De Marco

Sebastian Heinz    

Jelle Kaastra   

Tim Kallman

Alex Markowitz     

Werner Norbert     

Agata Rozanska (Co-Chair)

Randall Smith      

Andrzej Zdziarski (Chair)

 

1st AHEAD Workshop on particle background and Geant4 introductory course.

Rome, 28-30 November 2016
 

Deadline for Abstract Submission: October, 28, 2016

http://ahead.iaps.inaf.it/?page_id=459

The workshop will be mainly devoted to particles and their interaction with high energy space observatories with specific reference to the X-Ray observatory “ATHENA”, the second ESA large class mission.

The focus will be primarily on the effects of particles on detector background and damage. We plan to address different environments (e.g. low-earth orbit, high earth orbit, L1, L2 etc.) as well as different particles species, making use of data collected from existing missions.

Significant attention will be devoted to Monte Carlo tools, such as Geant4, which are used to evaluate the background intensity of existing and planned experiments. Indeed one of our goals is to bring together scientists from the Geant4 community with those working on space missions to evaluate the usefulness of this tool and its validity for X-ray based-mission. An introductory course to Geant4 is foreseen just after the end of the workshop to help for this interaction. Furthermore, in the context of the upcoming ATHENA mission, attention will be dedicated to the solar wind charge exchange process which is responsible for one of the more elusive background components that future X-ray missions will have to deal with.

The following is a list of topics that will be adressed:

1) Plasma physics (particle environment)
2) Solar wind charge exchange
3) Background effects on science data from high energy missions to microwaves
4) Radiation Damage (from high energy missions to microwaves to planetology probes,…)
5) Geant4 (low energy electromagnetic physics)
6) Geant4-based tool for instrument modelling

We will bring together scientists from different communities (from high energies to microwaves) who have approached these topics from different angles with the goal of reaching a clearer and deeper understanding of the physical processes involved in the production of instrumental background and radiation damage, and of the instrument modelling by Geant4 which we hope will be useful in designing more effective X-ray experiments in future space missions.

No registration fee is requested to attend this workshop.

The workshop will be held in Rome, at Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology,
in the Tor Vergata Research Area (CNR). Via del Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 ROMA.