Workshop2014:rationale
Come to our workshop to learn about:
- ESA's Gaia mission,which was launched in Dec 2013
- results of the commissioning of the satellite
- the first potential alerts on supernovae and other transients from Gaia
- results of the first alerts verification observations
- potential science to be done with Gaia transients (e.g. supernovae, TDE, microlensing, CVs, young stellar objects, GRBs)
- organisation of the follow-up for Gaia alerts
- how to get involved
Come to our workshop to contribute:
- with your experience in science of transients
- by presenting your results on surveying the sky for transients
- showing what can potentially be done with the Gaia data
- presenting your follow-up facility ready for Gaia alerts
Gaia is the cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency, successfully launched in December 2013. Its main goal is to map the entire Galaxy, but thanks to repetitive observations of the entire sky it also acts as a unique time-domain space survey, suitable for real-time detections of transients.
In recent years the astronomy of transient phenomena has became a very vivid area of research.
Gaia will join to numerous current large-scale surveys like PTF, PANSTARRS, CRTS, SkyMapper, OGLE, LOFAR, which are aiming at delivering transient objects corresponding to a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, from solar system objects, through new types of stellar variability and signatures of exoplanets, to supernovae and orphan Gamma Ray Bursts.
However, without prompt and appropriate follow-up observations, much of the scientific potential of these new discoveries will be lost. It becomes crucial for transient astronomy that the new phenomena are rapidly observed with small and medium size telescopes and the data are analysed quickly to share the knowledge.
Gaia Science Alerts Workshops (GSAW) are organised annually since 2010. Their main goal has been, first, to keep the astronomical community informed and updated about the progress of the preparation and eventually the operation of the alert detection procedures within the Gaia data processing pipeline. The workshops have been acting as a platform for sharing experience from researching across the diverse transient phenomena, including supernovae, tidal disruption events, cataclysmic variables, microlensing events, young stellar object, R Corona Borealis-type stars and others.
The workshops has been also facilitating organising the network of follow-up observatories, comprising of small and medium-sized telescopes from around the globe.
All those goals are also to be achieved in the 2014 edition of the GSAW, however, the main difference this year is that we now have the Gaia satellite successfully launched and operational! By the time of the workshop in September, the mission should commence its nominal operation and we expect to have some first alerts already detected and published to the astronomical community.
We should also have some first results to show and discuss from the extensive alerts verification campaign, which are currently being arranged on numerous spectroscopic and photometric facilities around the world.
In September the mission should be well on track and there should be already some understanding on its performance, especially based on the commissioning period during which the Ecliptic Poles would be observed.
At the workshop we will also hear the news from currently on-going transient surveys in their multi-wavelength and multi-messenger range and on their potential synergy with Gaia.
Please accept this cordial invitation to participate in the Gaia Science Alerts Workshop 2014 in Warsaw, Poland, 9-12 September 2014.
Let us together celebrate the successful start of the Gaia mission as well as Poland becoming a new member of ESA.
The workshop will be supported financially via the European Commission OPTICON grant. There will be no registration fee.
