KICP Workshops, 2008
 
CMBPol Workshop: Theory and Foreground
June 23 - 26, 2008 | Fermilab
Picture: CMBPol Workshop: Theory and Foreground
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Organizer: Scott Dodelson

The workshop will be slightly different than other conferences/workshops in the field. There will be relatively few talks and the bulk of the time will be set aside for 5 working groups: Inflation, Lensing, Reionization, Foreground Science, and Foreground Removal. Each working group will produce a coherent paper summarizing the case for a CMB polarization satellite mission. These sections will be submitted simultaneously to the arxiv and bound together [with a unifying introduction] into a document that will be passed on to the Decadel Survey.
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Related Links:
KICP Members: Scott Dodelson
Scientific projects: CMBPol Mission Concept Study (CMBPol)

 
Digital Sky Academy
June 25, 2008 | 8:00 AM | LASR Conference
This is an intensive technical training session for digital planetarium dome users and potential users (e.g., how to incorporate your data into dome shows). KICP research will also be presented in the context of planetarium shows.

Michael Turner: The state of cosmology today is easy to summarize: we know much, but understand little. We know the shape, age and contents of the Universe and have evidence that the Universe underwent a burst of very rapid expansion during its earliest moments (inflation) that resulted in quantum fluctuations being transmuted into the density perturbations that seeded all structure. However, we don't understand what the bulk of the Universe is - the 96% in dark matter and dark energy - we don't know what caused inflation and we don't know how the Universe began, to mention just a few of the big puzzles. The style of astronomy is changing, from a romantic science dominated by a few individuals who held their data close to big science and more democratic teams that produce very large datasets that are available to all, scientists and the public alike.

AGENDA
8:00 Continental breakfast served in KICP room
8:30 Welcome and logistics of KICP - Agenda for the day, & the DSA Forum - Martin Ratcliffe
8:45 Michael Turner: Cosmology: Where we are, the challenges ahead and a changing culture
9:45 DSA Session 1 New Scripting Interface - Ed White
10:30 Coffee Break
11:00 DSA Session 2 - Data Handling - Mike Sperry
12:00 Informal Lunch - Cold Sandwiches - served in meeting room. (Meal $10)
13:00 DSA session 3 - DSA Medley - assorted topics including type of CG objects DS2 can handle.
14:30 Coffee Break
15:00 KICP Presentations 2 & 3 - Cosmic Rays (Vasos Pavlidou), Sloan Digital Sky Survey (M. SubbaRao), more science for the Dome (Cosmic Rays in Top Ten Science stories in Nature, and front cover of Science in November 07.
16:00 DSA Session 4 - People’s Choice - you pick a topic you would like to learn about - Ed White, Johan Gisjenbergs, Mike Sperry and Martin Ratcliffe
17:15 Wrap up/Q&A
17:30 Adjourn
18:00 Meet at restaurant for a dinner

Related Links:
KICP Members: Mark Subbarao; Michael S. Turner

 
CMBPol Workshop: Mitigating Systematic Errors in Space-based CMB Polarization Measurements
July 28 - 30, 2008 | Annapolis, Maryland
Picture: CMBPol Workshop: Mitigating Systematic Errors in Space-based CMB Polarization Measurements
Website

The workshop "Mitigating Systematic Errors in Space-based CMB Polarization Measurements" will cover systematic effects relevant to measuring primordial B-modes in the CMB and using them to constrain Inflation. We will discuss sources, simulations, instrument designs and observing strategies. A review of the current "state of the art" from suborbital and orbital platforms will feed into our discussion of issues of particular relevance for CMBPol. The output of this workshop will be a written document that will become part of the full CMBPol Mission Concept Study.

The workshop will take place at the Double Tree Hotel in Annapolis, MD. The meeting is being hosted by the Goddard Space Flight Center.
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Related Links:
KICP Members: Clarence L. Chang; Jeff McMahon; Stephan S. Meyer; Clement L. Pryke; Suzanne Staggs; Bruce D. Winstein
Scientific projects: CMBPol Mission Concept Study (CMBPol)

 
Energy Transformations, Yerkes Summer Institute
August 2 - 8, 2008 | Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, WI
Picture: Energy Transformations, Yerkes Summer Institute
Energy Transformations
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This week long, residential, science immersion experience investigated how energy is used and transformed. Three day long laboratories, which the students cycled through in small groups, each explored energy transformations. "Some Like it Hot" examined energy transfer from fundamental physics to applications of energy transfer in everything from home energy efficiency to energy transfer in ultra-energetic astrophysical events. "Solar Power" was about trapping energy from the sun and converting it into heat with solar ovens, into electricity with photovoltaic cells and into chemical energy via photosynthesis. "Turn the Crank" explored the inter-conversion of mechanical and electrical energy via generators/motors, windmills, bicycle generators, and a Rube Goldberg device. Evening activities explored the energetics of stars. One lab probed differences in colors and intensities of light from astronomical sources and how these properties relate to energy in binary, red giant and luminous blue stars. The other evening lab employed the 24-inch telescope to study a variety of nearby stellar systems and how energy production within these systems influences their immediate environments. The outstanding instructional staff was a mix of younger and more senior researchers as well as public school teachers. Twenty-three (23) Space Explorers, and nineteen (19) laboratory instructors participated in YSI 2008.

Instructors: Alissa Bans, Matt Bayliss, Charles Brass, Kyle Cudworth, Bill Fisher, Robert Friedman, Nick Halmagyi, Vivian Hoette, Florin Ionita, Jon Jezak, Chris Kelso, Yeun-Jin Kim, Rich Kron, Zosia Krusberg, Randy Landsberg, Reid Sherman, Chris Thom, Amol Upadhye, Phil Wisecup.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Richard G. Kron; Randall H. Landsberg; Chris Thom; Amol Ravindra Upadhye
KICP Students: Alissa Bans; Matthew B. Bayliss; Robert Friedman; Florin Ionita; Christopher M. Kelso; Yeunjin Kim; Zosia Krusberg

 
International Symposium: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: From Asteroids to Cosmology
August 15 - 18, 2008 | Merchandise Mart Conference Center (2nd Floor), 350 West Mart Center Drive, Chicago IL 60654
Picture: International Symposium: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: From Asteroids to Cosmology
Website

Organizers: Joshua A. Frieman, Evalyn I. Gates, Stephan S. Meyer, Richard G. Kron, Donald G. York

Over eight years of observations, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I, 2000 - 2005; SDSS-II, 2005 - 2008) has transformed many fields of astronomy, from the identification of asteroid families to the discovery of the most distant quasars, from substructure in the outer Galaxy to the large-scale structure of the Universe.

This broad-ranging symposium will review progress and prospects in these fields, including observational contributions from the SDSS and from other major surveys, theoretical interpretation of the results, and plans for the next generation of large astronomical survey projects. The program will include invited reviews, contributed talks, posters, and a symposium banquet on a cruise boat on Lake Michigan.
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Related Links:
KICP Members: Joshua A. Frieman; Evalyn I. Gates; Richard G. Kron; Stephan S. Meyer; Donald G. York
Scientific projects: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

 
CMBPol Workshop: Technology Development for a CMB Probe of Inflation
August 25 - 28, 2008 | National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, Colorado
Picture: CMBPol Workshop: Technology Development for a CMB Probe of Inflation
Website

Organizers: Stephan S. Meyer, Jeff McMahon, Clement L. Pryke

We will discuss the detector, optics, and cooling technology developments that are necessary to implement a CMB polarization satellite in the next decade.

This workshop is one of three workshops that are organized as part of the CMB community's effort to assemble a report that will be presented to the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey Panel. The effort is led by Stephan Meyer, who is the PI of the NASA grant that provides funding, and is sponsored by the Primordial Polarization Program Definition Team.
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Related Links:
KICP Members: Jeff McMahon; Stephan S. Meyer; Clement L. Pryke
Scientific projects: CMBPol Mission Concept Study (CMBPol)

 
"Viewing the Universe via the World Wide Web"
September 3 - 5, 2008 | Kersten Physics Teaching Center (KPTC) at The University of Chicago
Picture: Viewing the Universe via the World Wide Web
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Organizers: Joshua A. Frieman, Andrey V. Kravtsov, Randall H. Landsberg, Mark Subbarao

New, visually rich, astronomical software environments coupled with large web-accessible data sets hold the promise of new and exciting ways to teach, collaborate, and explore the universe. This workshop will examine the host of emerging, holistic, visual, astronomy software products; in particular Google Sky and World Wide Telescope. With the help of developers of these applications, we will investigate their capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. A primary focus of the workshop will be utilizing these tools to create tours, classroom applications, collaborative research environments, and laboratory exercises. These development efforts will be supported by mini-tutorials and one-on-one instruction by the creators of these products; and shared with fellow participants.
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Related Links:
KICP Members: Joshua A. Frieman; Andrey V. Kravtsov; Randall H. Landsberg; Mark Subbarao

 
The impact of high-energy astrophysics experiments on cosmological physics
October 27 - 28, 2008 | Chicago, IL
Picture: The impact of high-energy astrophysics experiments on cosmological physics
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Organizers: Maximo Ave, Pedro Facal, Luis C. Reyes, Patrick Boyle, Lorenzo Cazon, Brian Humensky, Nahee Park

A new generation of high-energy astrophysics experiments (including gamma-ray, neutrino, and cosmic-ray observatories) has begun to probe phenomena of common interest to cosmology and other branches of physics and astrophysics. The traditional model of interactions between the cosmology and high-energy astrophysics communities involves the use of findings from cosmological research as inputs in predicting expected signals for high-energy experiments. However, the latest advances in experimental capabilities of high-energy observatories will provide results that could be used as input and constraints for cosmological calculations. The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers from different backgrounds to identify the common opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in that context. In particular, we would like to focus on those measurements and analyses that can be carried out within the next 5 years with the current and upcoming instruments.

Workshop Topics:
* Search for dark matter signatures with particle astrophysics experiments
* Information about cosmological populations embedded in the high-energy sky
* Highest energy particles as probes of cosmic backgrounds and new physics
* Gamma rays and ultra-high-energy cosmic rays as probes of the intergalactic magnetic field
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Related Links:
KICP Members: Maximo Ave; Patrick Boyle; Lorenzo Cazon; Pedro Facal; Brian Humensky; Nahee Park; Luis C. Reyes
KICP Students: Tonia Venters; Stephanie A. Wissel
Scientific projects: Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi); Pierre Auger Observatory (AUGER); Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS)

 
Cosmic Detectives, Yerkes Winter Institute
December 27 - 29, 2008 | Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, WI
Picture: Cosmic Detectives, Yerkes Winter Institute
Cosmic Detectives: hidden messages
Photo Gallery

During the 2008 Yerkes Winter Institute (YWI) the Space Explorers became cosmic detectives and used their investigative skills to search for evidence, clues, correlations and other conclusions that could be drawn from "cosmic crime scenes". Eighteen (18) Space Explorers, one (1) Returning Scholar (i.e., a former Space Explorer acting as a junior instructor during their college break), and nine (9) laboratory instructors enjoyed snow filed investigations. "Hidden Messages" explored cryptography, "Footprints" examined the archetypal clue, a footprint, with the twist of electrostatic print lifting, and "Splat" examined a fairy tale catastrophe, Humpty Dumpty's fall combined with the physics of projectiles. Nighttime sleuthing activities included telescope observations of "hidden messages" in the Orion Nebula, determining which objects emit their own light via binoculars and deduction, and a giant puzzle of Sloan Digital Sky Survey data of the Andromeda galaxy (M31).

Instructors: Alissa Bans, Matt Bayliss, Charles Brass, Kyle Cudworth, Bill Fisher, Robert Friedman, Nick Halmagyi, Vivian Hoette, Florin Ionita, Jon Jezak, Chris Kelso, Yeun-Jin Kim, Rich Kron, Zosia Krusberg, Randy Landsberg, Reid Sherman, Chris Thom, Amol Upadhye, Phil Wisecup.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Richard G. Kron; Randall H. Landsberg; Chris Thom; Amol Ravindra Upadhye
KICP Students: Alissa Bans; Matthew B. Bayliss; Robert Friedman; Florin Ionita; Christopher M. Kelso; Yeunjin Kim; Zosia Krusberg