[vsnet-conference 63] (fwd) How Does the Galaxy Work?

[Taichi Kato <tkato@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp>]

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                            FIRST MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT 
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                            HOW DOES THE GALAXY WORK?

             A Galactic Tertulia(*) in honor of the 60th Birthdays of
                            Don Cox and Ron Reynolds

                     June 23 - 27, 2003 in Granada, Spain
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  http://www.iaa.csic.es/~milkyway                      milkyway@iaa.es
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 Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is a massive spiral.  It possesses a large 
 number of structural features that, while interesting in themselves, play 
 significant roles in continuously reshaping the system and determining its 
 evolution:  a central black hole, an internal bar structure, magnetic 
 fields, cosmic rays, a multi-phase interstellar medium and extended 
 gaseous halo, giant star forming regions, stellar population gradients and 
 aggregations, satellite galaxies, and a rotation curve indicative of a 
 dominant dark matter component.

 Many of these aspects were discussed from a multidisciplinary point of view
 at the first international conference "The Formation of the Milky Way",
 which was held in Granada during September 1994. The conference proceedings,
 published by Cambridge University Press under the same name, summarize the
 understanding at that time of a number of key puzzles: star formation,
 chemical evolution, stellar populations, and disk instabilities. In the past
 decade, a flood of detailed observational data across the entire
 electromagnetic spectrum has modified our view of spiral galaxies and
 revealed many processes that are yet to be understood. Now, in view of
 accelerating advances with new observational facilities and theoretical
 tools, the time is ripe to reconvene this conference to critically assess
 recent developments with a gathering of leading world experts. Many of the
 original issues remain unanswered and new questions have recently emerged. 
 This meeting will address how these are revising and extending our overall
 understanding of the Galaxy.

 Don and Ron have influenced many of these ideas in the last thirty years,
 now it is time to assemble a group of friends around them and discuss, in a
 friendly and open minded atmosphere, all these galactic processes and the
 way in which they shape our galactic system.

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 (*) A Tertulia is when a group of people gather to share their ideas, 
 talents, and experiences in the spirit of interpreting life.  It is a 
 moment of song, poetry, and wit in conversation.  In that spirit, this 
 meeting will be an open discussion of how the Galaxy works, celebrating 
 the things we have learned, debating the mysteries that are still 
 unresolved, and looking forward to the progress ahead.

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                     Scientific Organizing Committee:

 Emilio Alfaro (co-Chair), Rainer Beck, Bob Benjamin, Nancy Brickhouse,
 You-Hua Chu, Ralf-Jurgen Dettmar, John Dyson, Bruce Elmegreen, 
 Katia Ferriere, Jose Franco (co-Chair), Ken Freeman, Isabelle Grenier,
 Carl Heiles,Gerhard Hensler, Marco Martos, Chris McKee, 
 Casiana Mu~noz-Tu~non, John Raymond, Wilton Sanders, Steve Shore, 
 Jose Maria Torrelles, Ellen Zweibel

                       Local Organizing Committee:

 Emilio Alfaro, Antxon Alberdi, Antonio J. Delgado, Mariano Domenicone,
 Enrique Perez, Francisco Rendon, Rafael Rodrigo, Jose Ruedas, Jose M. Vilchez.

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                             Potential Topics: 

 Within the theme "How Does the Galaxy Work?", there are many topics to
 address, among them those that deal with: our current state of knowledge of
 the constituents, formation of the system as it impacts its current activity, 
 rates of activities within it, our best models and ideas about why the
 constituents have their observed distributions in space, their thermal and
 dynamical properties, how the constituents interact (form or are generated, 
 disperse or evolve), feedback between constituents, techniques
 for improving our observational knowledge and its interpretation.

 It is anticipated that contributors will frame their presentations within 
 this thematic context, and that there will be considerable time for 
 general discussion of the issues. A sample of the likely details includes:

 STARS AND DARK MATTER: Formation and evolution of the halo and disk, fossils
 and mergers, global structure including bars and arms, angular momentum 
 transport, gravitational potential, star formation

 ISM: Thermal and non-thermal components (from cold to hot and from molecular
 to ionized), their local and global distributions, transition rates among
 them, filling factors and porosity, dust, gas motions, pressures, and the
 consequent scale heights of components  

 ACTIVITIES AND INFLUENCES: Infall, galactic wind, supernovae and their
 remnants, OB associations and other forms of stellar feedback, superbubbles
 and fountains, bar and gaseous arm disturbances, diffuse heating mechanisms
 and their stochastic variation, sources and influences of cosmic rays,
 magnetic fields, turbulence, chemical evolution and gradients.  

 OBSERVATIONAL TOOLS: Recent developments, results, new ideas, fundamental
 atomic physics, and plasma diagnostics.

 GLOBAL MODELING: Current status in dynamics, MHD, and collisionally and
 photoionized plasma modeling. Tentative results, promises, and puzzles.

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