LSST:UK All Hands Meeting: 11-13 May 2021

The LSST:UK Consortium will be holding an online All Hands Meeting from Tuesday, May 11th to Thursday May 13th 2021. The meeting is open to the whole UK astronomical community and we particularly encourage attendance by those who have not previously engaged with LSST:UK, for whom targeted information will be provided on how to get involved in preparation for the Rubin LSST.

The meeting will comprise three half-day sessions of talks, plus additional time for informal discussions online. The talks will provide an update on Rubin Observatory construction and plans for the start of survey operations in October 2023, together with the organisation of the scientific exploitation of Rubin LSST data and the UK’s role within the international LSST community.

Further information about the All Hands Meeting can be found on the LSST:UK wiki – see https://lsst-uk.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HOME/pages/2242084981/LSST%2BUK%2BAll%2BHands%2BMeeting%2BVirtual%2B11th%2B13th%2BMay%2B2021 – and registration for the event will remain open until 16.00BST on Friday, May 7th.

Bob Mann and Stephen Smartt, for the organisers.

https://lsst-uk.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HOME/pages/2242084981/LSST%2BUK%2BAll%2BHands%2BMeeting%2BVirtual%2B11th%2B13th%2BMay%2B2021… continue to the full article

Read more

Dear Colleague,

Tickets are now available to book for the Royal Astronomical Society Specialist Discussion Meeting on Friday, 14 May 2021 (https://ras.ac.uk/events-and-meetings/ras-meetings/mhd-oscillations-and-waves-photosphere-corona). The topic is “MHD oscillations and waves from the photosphere to the corona”.

Final programme of the meeting will be online soon.

Best Regards,

Jiajia Liu (QUB), Chris Nelson (QUB), Robertus Erdélyi (UoS), Mihalis Mathioudakis (QUB)

https://ras.ac.uk/events-and-meetings/ras-meetings/mhd-oscillations-and-waves-photosphere-corona… continue to the full article

Read more

We invite abstracts for a session at the National Astronomy Meeting 2021, entitled ‘Instabilities, nonlinearities and heating in the solar corona’.

The current generation of advanced solar observing facilities is beginning to reveal the nature of the corona in unprecedented detail. Whilst it is becoming increasingly clear that dynamic and complex behaviour is pervasive throughout the Sun’s atmosphere, many of the observed physical processes remain poorly understood. This session will explore magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities, wave-induced turbulence and the nature of the energy release which sustains the multi-million degree coronal temperatures.

Mechanisms proposed to explain coronal heating can be grouped according to the temporal behaviour of the underlying energy source. On one hand, long time scale flows will slowly build magnetic stress which can be released through reconnection events and on the other, short time scale flows will induce MHD waves which can dissipate in the corona. The relative importance of these two categories remains unclear and may well vary throughout the coronal volume. In either case, for significant energy release to occur, small length scales must be generated in either the magnetic or velocity fields (or both). A popular mechanism by which these small scales may arise is the formation of an energy cascade during the development of MHD turbulence. This may form as a result of the nonlinear interaction of counter-propagating wave modes, the disruption of unidirectionally propagating kink modes or due to dynamic and thermal instabilities such as the Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor-type instabilities. All of these nonlinear phenomena must be explored in detail in order to fully understand the complex nature of the solar corona.

Abstract submission: https://nam2021.org/science/abstract-submission
Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2021

Kind regards,

Norbert Magyar, Thomas Howson, Patrick Antolin, Andrew Hillier, Jack Reid… continue to the full article

Read more

Dear all

We would like to announce that registration for NAM 2021 is now open. Details on the conference fees and on how to register can be found on our webpages, at https://nam2021.org. These pages also provide details on the possibility to apply for registration fee waivers.

We would also like to remind you that the deadline for abstract submission to the parallel sessions taking place at this year’s NAM closes on Friday 30th April at 18:00 BST (UTC+1hr). Details on the NAM programme and on how to submit an abstract can be found on the NAM 2021 webpages.

Best wishes,

Patricia Schady
on behalf of the NAM2021 LOC… continue to the full article

Read more

We invite abstract submissions from the Solar Physics community for a session on ‘Wave-Particle Interactions in Space and Astrophysical Plasmas’ at NAM 2021.

The session abstract is included below, and invited speakers are Francesco Valentini (Università della Calabria), Wen Li (Boston University), and Irina Zhuravleva (University of Chicago). Abstract deadline is Friday 30 April 2021 at 1700 UTC.

Session abstract:
Wave-particle interactions are an essential process in plasmas across our solar system and in astrophysical bodies that governs plasma heating and the transfer of energy between particles and electromagnetic fields. For example, EMIC waves and whistler mode waves play central roles in radiation belt acceleration and loss, Landau-damping of kinetic Alfvén waves is a key candidate to explain solar-wind heating, and heat-flux instabilities are crucial for the energy transfer in the intracluster medium. These interactions span a wide range of spatial scales: the fundamental interaction and wave growth take place on ion and electron scales but cause large-scale changes in the entire plasma population. Furthermore, the large-scale structure and plasma properties shape the propagation of wave energy and determine where wave-particle interactions occur.
This session aims to bring together researchers from the solar, terrestrial, planetary, and astrophysics communities to evaluate the breadth of interactions and investigate similarities and differences in wave-particle interactions. The multi-scale nature of wave-particle interactions and the variation of their characteristics for different plasma regimes will be explored. We welcome contributions from theoretical, modelling and observational perspectives.

https://nam2021.org/science/parallel-sessions/details/2/79 … continue to the full article

Read more

The deadline for abstract submissions for parallel sessions taking place at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting, NAM2021, is Friday 30th April 2021 at 17:00 UTC.

The meeting will be a virtual conference taking place on 19-23 July.

For more details on the meeting, and to submit an abstract please follow the link at https://nam2021.org.… continue to the full article

Read more

Welcome to the 16th European Solar Physics Meeting (ESPM-16)!
https://indico.ict.inaf.it/e/ESPM-16

Save the dates in your diary!

The next European Solar Physics Meeting (EPSM-16) will be organised as a fully online conference in the period 6-10 September 2021.

The meeting was originally planned to take place in the wonderful city of Turin, but as a result of the current pandemic situation, it was decided to be organised in a different way.

In order to encourage a wide participation, the meeting is going to be FREE for all registered participants.

ESPM is the most important solar physics gathering in Europe, bringing together scientists from all over the world, active in the theoretical, observational and modelling studies of the Sun and its effects in the heliosphere. The ESPM-16 sessions will be devoted to solar interior and dynamo, fundamental plasma processes in the solar atmosphere, solar eruptions, particle acceleration, solar wind and solar-terrestrial relations, including space weather and space climate. New results from the latest spaceborne solar missions and ground-based observatories studying the Sun and solar wind will be presented and discussed during the conference.

ESPM-16 is organized by the Board of the European Solar Physics Division (ESPD, http://solar.epsdivision.org), a joint Division of the European Physical Society (EPS) with support from INAF-Turin Astrophysical Observatory and European Space Agency (ESA).

Important dates:
Registration will be open from 1st April to 1st August, 2021: https://indico.ict.inaf.it/event/794/registrations/225/

Call for Abstracts will be open from 1st April to 1st June, 2021: https://indico.ict.inaf.it/event/794/abstracts/

https://indico.ict.inaf.it/e/ESPM-16… continue to the full article

Read more

We would like to invite abstract submissions to the UK National Astronomy Meeting 2021 session:
“Space weather and plasma processes: From the Sun to the Earth”

The session is scheduled for the afternoons of Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd July 2021.

Link to session description: https://nam2021.org/science/parallel-sessions/details/2/82

The deadline for abstract submission is 1700hrs (UTC) on Friday 30th April 2021: https://nam2021.org/science/abstract-submission

S. Bentley, M. Korsos, K. Meyer, T. Bloch, S. Bloomfield, R. Boynton, T. Elsden, R. Harrison, P. Pagano, A. Smith… continue to the full article

Read more

We invite abstract submissions for a session ‘From Plasma to Galactic Dynamics: Collisionless Physics Across the Universe’ at the VIRTUAL UK National Astronomy Meeting, 19th-23rd July, 2021, https://nam2021.org/.

We would also like to highlight that there are a significant number of other GEM/solar/magnetospheric/space weather/space plasma physics related sessions at NAM 2021, https://nam2021.org/science/parallel-sessions.

Abstract deadline is Friday 30th April 2021 at 1700 UTC. Full details can be found at https://nam2021.org/science/parallel-sessions/details/2/107.

Invited speakers: David Burgess (Queen Mary University of London) & Benoit Famaey (Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg).

The dynamics of many physical systems across the Universe are well described using the collisionless approximation: for which the mean free path is significantly larger than the most important length scales. In these cases, the statistical evolution of many bodies is determined by the collisionless Boltzmann (aka the Vlasov) equation. From the Earth’s radiation belts, through the magnetosphere, solar wind, interstellar medium and beyond to even more exotic relativistic and high-energy astrophysical environments, charged particle dynamics are commonly collisionless. One of the most important implications of low collisionality is the departure of particle distributions from thermal equilibrium. This, and other effects, play a vital role in diverse plasma physics phenomena such as wave-particle interactions, magnetic reconnection, collisionless shocks, cross-scale coupling and turbulence. Furthermore, the evolution of galaxies themselves is often treated as a collisionless process, with galactic dynamics and other self-gravitating systems also modelled using Vlasov theory. One important and common theme that unites these seemingly disparate plasma and gravitational applications is the fact that in the absence of collisions/thermalisation, nature needs to find another route to dissipate energy. Kinetic plasma instabilities are one such route; and in disk galaxies, the Landau damping of density waves on resonantly orbiting stars is thought responsible for the ‘heating’ of the stellar velocity distribution. Modern satellites such as MMS, Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter are revealing the true kinetic nature of plasma within our solar system. Analogously, the Gaia satellite is revealing signatures of these kinetic effects in the Milky Way. Furthermore, increasing computational power is making more ambitious kinetic and hybrid numerical experiments a reality (e.g. the system-scale kinetic modelling undertaken by the Vlasiator group). In astrophysics, N-body simulations are becoming so efficient that direct comparison with the kinetic theory is achievable. In this inter-disciplinary session we welcome all observational, theoretical and modelling work that considers the physics of collisionless systems – in either (or both of) the plasma and gravitational contexts.… continue to the full article

Read more

We invite abstract submissions for the Solar Physics Open Session at the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) 2021.

Solar Physics Open Session:
The activity of our nearest star, the Sun, drives variability within the heliosphere in a myriad of different ways, impacting the Earth and other planets within the solar system. As the only star on which we can begin to resolve physical processes at their intrinsic scales, the Sun provides a unique laboratory for plasma astrophysics. In this session we welcome all contributions describing advances relating to physical processes occurring from the interior to the outer atmosphere, based on space- or ground-based observations, simulations or theory that fall outside the remit of other specialist sessions.

Organiser(s)
Sarah Matthews, Anne-Marie Broomhall, Ryan Campbell, Andrew Hillier, Natasha Jeffrey, Marianna Korsos, Jiajia Liu, Eamon Scullion

The deadline for abstract submission is 1700hrs (UTC) on Friday 30th April 2021.

https://nam2021.org/science/parallel-sessions/details/2/86… continue to the full article

Read more