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IAU colloquium no. 115: High resolution X-ray spectroscopy of cosmic plasmas
1.3. IAU COLLOQUIUM NO. 115: HIGH RESOLUTION X-RAY SPECTROSCOPY OF COSMIC PLASMAS”’
Cambridge, MA, USA, 22-25 August 1988 120 people from 12 countries attended this first international meeting to address high resolution spectroscopy of cosmic X-ray sources from a broad perspective. A total of 64 papers (41 oral and 23 poster) were presented. The Colloquium progressed with the following sequence of topics, X-rays from a hot plasma including magnetic effects, Stellar coronae, SNRs, compact binaries, Clusters of galaxies, AGNs, instrumentation, Future X-ray astronomy observatories. Although this sequence seems logical, with theoretical topics at the beginning and instrumentation at the end, there was a comment that there should have been more intermixing of theoretical and instrumentation to promote more interaction between theoreticians and instrumentation developers. IAU Colloquium No. 115 resulted in fruitful interaction among a diverse group of scientists and a wider appreciation of the importance of high resolution spectroscopy in X-ray astronomy, particularly among observers and instrument developers. Theoreticians learned about future observatories and were motivated to add to their work and address the capabilities of the future observatories. It appears that the future observatories, namely ASTRO-D (Japan), SPECTRUM-X-GAMMA (USSR), SPEKTROSAT (FRG), AXAF (USA) and XMM (ESA) will result in X-ray spectroscopy coming of age in the 1990s. The proceedings of IAU Colloquium No. 115 will be published by Cambridge University Press, with Paul Gorenstein (Chairman of the Scientific Organizing Committee) and Martin Zombeck (Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee) as editors. A criticism of the IAU Colloquium, made with some justification, was the low proportion of women among the invited speakers and session chairpersons in relation to the number of women scientists who are making significant contributions to. the field. In future colloquia and symposia, this could be avoided if women are given adequate consideration when the scientific organizing committee is selected.
@)From IAU Information Bulletin No. 61, January 1989.
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Cambridge, MA, USA, 22-25 August 1988 120 people from 12 countries attended this first international meeting to address high resolution spectroscopy of cosmic X-ray sources from a broad perspective. A total of 64 papers (41 oral and 23 poster) were presented. The Colloquium progressed with the following sequence of topics, X-rays from a hot plasma including magnetic effects, Stellar coronae, SNRs, compact binaries, Clusters of galaxies, AGNs, instrumentation, Future X-ray astronomy observatories. Although this sequence seems logical, with theoretical topics at the beginning and instrumentation at the end, there was a comment that there should have been more intermixing of theoretical and instrumentation to promote more interaction between theoreticians and instrumentation developers. IAU Colloquium No. 115 resulted in fruitful interaction among a diverse group of scientists and a wider appreciation of the importance of high resolution spectroscopy in X-ray astronomy, particularly among observers and instrument developers. Theoreticians learned about future observatories and were motivated to add to their work and address the capabilities of the future observatories. It appears that the future observatories, namely ASTRO-D (Japan), SPECTRUM-X-GAMMA (USSR), SPEKTROSAT (FRG), AXAF (USA) and XMM (ESA) will result in X-ray spectroscopy coming of age in the 1990s. The proceedings of IAU Colloquium No. 115 will be published by Cambridge University Press, with Paul Gorenstein (Chairman of the Scientific Organizing Committee) and Martin Zombeck (Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee) as editors. A criticism of the IAU Colloquium, made with some justification, was the low proportion of women among the invited speakers and session chairpersons in relation to the number of women scientists who are making significant contributions to. the field. In future colloquia and symposia, this could be avoided if women are given adequate consideration when the scientific organizing committee is selected.
@)From IAU Information Bulletin No. 61, January 1989.
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