Aims of the Workshop:
Astronomers and students in Latin America have an increasing interest in the science and methods of high energy astrophysics. The superb spatial and spectral resolution of the Chandra (1999) and XMM-Newton (2000) X-ray observatories have revolutionized the study of the Universe at the energy window of [0.1-12] keV, providing fantastic discoveries and giving new insights about astrophysical process that occurs on different classes of sources.
However, most of X-ray emission mechanisms extends toward higher energies, a few tens of keV. The launch of NuStar in June 2012 has improved our vision spanning our understanding to harder energies (3-79 keV), expanding our scientific horizons towards more energetic scenarios taking place in black holes, active galaxies, or supernova explosions.
The available datasets of these X-ray missions contain rich untapped data and offer a great opportunity for young scientists to learn and investigate different astrophysical phenomena in a wider and common vision. Close and extensive contact with international experts in the field is the best way to develop the skills of these young researchers.
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The proposed international workshop, “Latin American X-ray school for different astrophysical scenarios. - Data analysis of the XMM-Newton, Chandra and NuStar missions”, bring together leading national and international experts and young researchers, encouraging communication and collaboration as well as promoting new ideas that can help the participants in their current projects and further researches.
The topics to be covered in the workshop via lectures and hands-on work are:
1. Basic theoretical concepts of High Energy Astrophysics (thermal and non-thermal X-ray emission mechanisms).
2. Statistics: basic concepts and applications.
3. High Energy Astronomy Satellites: past, present and future.
4. Software for X-ray data analysis - installation, usage, and basic scripting.
5. X-ray data analysis:
a. Accessing archival databases for spectral, timing, and imaging data.
b. Reduction and analysis of spectroscopic, timing and imaging data.
c. Simultaneous analysis of data from multiple detectors and wavebands.
6. Basics of writing a scientific paper and an observational proposal.
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Scientific Organising Committee
Dr. Carlos Gabriel, ESAC, ESA, Spain - COSPAR (Chair)
Dr. Juan Facundo Albacete-Colombo, UNESP (Co-chair & local coordinator)
Dr. Piero Benvenuti, IAU, Italy
Dr. Joao Braga, INPE, Brazil
Dr. Álvaro Giménez, ESA, Spain
Dr. Neil Gehrels, NASA, USA
Prof. William Lee, UNAM, Mexico
Prof. Ericson López, EPN, Ecuador
Dr. Marcos Machado, CONAE, Argentina
Dr. Thierry Montmerle, IAU, France
Prof. Ezequiel Treister, PUC, Chile
Prof. Peter Willmore, UoB, UK - COSPAR
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Lecturers
Dr. Keith Arnaud, GSFC, USA.
Dr. Carlos Gabriel, ESA - XMM-Newton, Spain.
Dr. Federico García, University of La Plata, Argentina.
Dr. Matteo Guainazzi, ESA, Japan.
Dr. Kristin Kruse Madsen, NASA, USA.
Prof. Mariano Méndez, KAI, The Netherlands.
Dr. Michael Nowak, MIT, USA.
Dr. Dan Patnaude, SAO/CfA - Chandra, USA.
Prof. Gustavo E. Romero, University of La Plata - Theory, Argentina.
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Data and Software:
We plan to concentrate on Chandra, XMM-Newton and NuStar data analysis. So, required tools to process and extract results from the X-ray archival data are: HEASOFT, ISIS, FTOOLS, SAS, CIAO and NuStar that are all freely available for the operating systems required at the school, Linux or MacOS X.
Once the candidates are confirmed to be selected to the workshop, we'll contact them to help with the installation of the necessary software before the arrival.
Please, install its before the arrival and write us for any kind of problem on the installation procedure.
Although we will have a good internet broad-band connection, the projects involved in the workshop will be requested to bring (part of) their archives on portable hard disks, for direct access.
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