HEAT: High-energy Astrophysics Teleconference

This month's High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) on the 29^th will feature a special guest from the University of Delaware:

Stan Owocki
"X-rays & Gamma-rays from Massive Stars" (6.4MB PDF)
See also the animations of Eta Car and Theta Ori C

Stan is visiting Australia through December and may be travelling to a city near you!

This months telecon also features the last hosting appearance by our long-time convenor Stephen Ng; Zdenka Misanovic (Monash) will take over from 2010 onwards. Stephen has been organising HEAT since March 2007, and has done a great job filling the schedule and keeping the meetings going. He is moving on to a postdoc at McGill, but hopefully will tune in from time to time in future. Thanks & good luck from all of us!

Today's attendees: Gemma Anderson & Stephen Ng (USyd); Ray Protheroe (U. Adelaide); Duncan Galloway, Alina Donea & Zdenka Misanovic (Monash).

This month's High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) on the 27^th will feature

Zdenka Misanovic (Monash U.)
"X-ray bursts from 4U 1728-34 and other He-rich bursters" (.5MB PDF)

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if you prefer us to call you.

This month's High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) on the 30^th will feature

Roger Clay (U. Adelaide)
"Arrival Directions of Auger's Highest Energy Events" (.16MB PDF)

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if prefer us to call you.

This week's High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) on the 28^th will feature yours truly

Duncan Galloway (Monash)
"Measuring neutron star parameters from mixed H/He bursts" (3.2MB PPT or 1.5MB PDF)

Time permitting, I will also give a brief report on the meeting that this talk was presented at — CRUST09.

Also for discussion is the opportunity to get involved in the Italian X-ray mission Simbol-X; this is "an advanced hard-X-ray focussing space telescope that was studied as collaborative effort between Italy, France and other european countries", planned to fly around 2015. Simbol-X has successfully completed phase A but could not continue development due to budget restrictions. The Italian Space Agency is looking for potential partners for the development of such a mission as a multilateral program. A few papers describing the program can be found in the directory

Geoff Bicknell also suggested we talk about the possibility of joining the CTA (Very High Energy Gamma Ray) project. The web page is at http://www.cta-observatory.org.

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if prefer us to call you.

This week's High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) on the 30^th will star

Gemma Anderson (USyd)
"ChIcAGO: Chasing the Identification of ASCA Galactic Objects" (1.7MB PPT or 4.1MB PDF)

There will be plenty of time for discussion, so feel free to mention any recent meetings you've been to, or bring along some interesting astro-ph for discussion.

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if prefer us to call you.

Attendees: Bryan Gaensler, Stephen Ng & Aimee McNamara (USyd); Gavin Rowell & Ray Protheroe (U. Adelaide); Ron Ekers (ATNF); Duncan Galloway & Zdenka Misanovic (Monash).

This week's High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) on the 26^th will feature a presentation by our hard-working organiser & host

Stephen Ng (USyd) "The Remarakable Radio Trail of PSR J1509-5850" (1.8MB PDF)

There will be plenty of time for discussion, so feel free to mention any recent meetings you've been to, or bring along some interesting astro-ph for discussion.

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if prefer us to call you.

We kick off the International Year of Astronomy with our first High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) on the 26^th. This week we will hear from

Qinghuan Luo (USYD) "Cosmic-ray Streaming Instabilities at Supernova Shocks" (154kB PDF)

There will be plenty of time for free discussion, so feel free to mention any recent meetings you've been to, or bring along some interesting astro-ph for discussion. We should also discuss whether the usual time slot will continue to be OK for this year.

Attendees: Bryan Gaensler & Stephen Ng (USyd); Clancy James & Roger Clay (U. Adelaide); Geoff Bicknell (RSAA); Duncan Galloway & Zdenka Misanovic (Monash).

Although in a telecon no-one can see if you're wearing a costume or scary mask, we continue this month with the High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT), postponed from last month and hence retaining the Halloween theme. Qinghuan's talk will have to wait for a future session, this week we have

Shami Chatterjee (USyd) "The Proper Motions of Magnetars" (1.3MB PDF)

There will be plenty of time for free discussion, so feel free to mention any recent meetings you've been to, or bring along some interesting astro-ph for discussion.

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if you prefer us to call you. In case of difficulties you can try Shami's mobile 0405 251016

The High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) reconvenes this month after a brief service interruption. In this episode we'll hear from

Geoff Bicknell (ANU) "Gamma Ray Emission from Blazars" (2.8MB PDF or 2.9MB PPT; see also the movie directory)

There will be plenty of time for free discussion, so feel free to mention any recent meetings you've been to, or bring along some interesting astro-ph for discussion.

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if you prefer us to call you.

Attendees: Stephen Ng (USyd); Roberto Soria (MSSL); Ray Protheroe (UAdel); Geoff Bicknell (RSAA); Duncan Galloway, Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway& Zdenka Misanovic (Monash).

Apologies from: Roland Crocker

The High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) for this month will feature just one speaker,

Ray Protheroe (Univ. of Adelaide) "Sgr B2 giant molecular cloud and its predicted radio synchrotron emission" (500 kB PDF)

We will leave some time for free discussion, feel free to report any recent meetings you've been to, or bring along some interesting astro-ph for discussion.

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if you prefer us to call you.

* The connection of this week's teleconference with the Tour is tenuous, I'll admit; but it currently underway, and an Aussie, Cadel Evans, has been leading for the last three stages (currently #3)!

We had a very interesting teleconference today, with two great talks by

Chris Hales (Sydney Univ) "Cosmic Forensics: A Study of the Pulsar Wind Nebula G359.23-0.82, -The Mouse" (7.7 Mb PDF) Chris is the winner of the 2008 Bok Prize for outstanding research in astronomy by an Honours student (congratulations Chris!)

Roberto Soria (MSSL) "A search for high-energy pulsars in historical supernovae" (2.1 Mb PPT/6.5 Mb PDF)

Other attendees: Bryan Gaensler & Stephen Ng (USyd); Ray Protheroe (U. Adelaide); and Duncan Galloway, Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway, Roland Crocker & Zdenka Misanovic (Monash).

The High Energy Astrophysics Teleconference (HEAT) for this month will be held on Thursday (22/5) 12pm Eastern time. The talks are:

"Compton X-ray Polarization Signatures in High Energy Astrophysical Systems" (2.3MB PDF) — Aimee McNamara (Univ. of Sydney)

"LUNASKA: Towards UHE Particle Astronomy with the Moon and Radio Telescopes" (10.9 MB PPT) — Clancy James (Univ. of Adelaide)

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if you prefer us to call you.

Thanks everyone for joining HEAT today. We heard from:

Stephen Ng (Univ. of Sydney) – "Deep Chandra Observation of the PWN in Kes 75" (1.2 MB PDF; see also the recent preprint on this result at arXiv:0804.3384)

Duncan Galloway (Monash Univ.) – "Some highlights from the HEAD, APS and other meetings"

Highlights from the HEAD meeting included the lunchtime Astrostatistics session, the talks from which can be found at the CHASC site; the lunchtime session on "Science Impacts of High-Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy"; the evening "Non-GRB Science with Swift" session and the many new instrument sessions, with the particular focus on the imminent Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey (by the US National Academies). Duncan also attended one day of the APS meeting in St. Louis, where he gave a talk in Session L3: The Physics of X-Ray Bursts and the workshop "A Decade of Accreting Millisecond X-ray Pulsars" in Amsterdam.

Attendees: Bryan Gaensler, Gemma Anderson, Aimee McNamara, Shami Chatterjee, Andrew Hopkins & Stephen Ng (USyd); Roberto Soria (MSSL, currently in Beijing); Gavin Rowell, Roger Clay, Bruce Dawson & Clancy James (U. Adelaide); and Duncan Galloway, Roland Crocker & Zdenka Misanovic (Monash).

We will have two talks this week at the usual time of 12 noon (AEDT):

Christine Chung (Melbourne University) "Pulse variations in XTE J1814-338" (11.6 MB PDF)
Roland Crocker (Monash University) "The Galactic centre at 10¹² eV and above" (4.6 MB PDF)

Please call Bryan's number 02 9351 6053 for the teleconference or let us know if you prefer us to call you.

We will also have a brief report on the progress (or lack thereof) towards the Kioloa High-Energy Astrophysics Workshop.

The last HEAT of 2007 (in December) was postponed due to lack of an audience. Zdenka Kuncic cannot make it but Roberto Soria will report this Thursday at noon (EDT) on the conference in Calcutta he attended last week, "Observational Evidence of Black Holes", including a summary of his talk (BH masses in ULXs) (also available as a PDF).
Please phone Bryan on (02) 9351 6053 to listen in. I'm also going to try something a little different and have a chat room at http://www.chatmaker.net/chatap/rooms/heat/ in which we can present additional information (for example) without interrupting the speaker.
The webpage for the upcoming Kioloa meeting has moved to http://users.monash.edu.au/~dgallow/kioloa08. In an email to the HEAT list, we just (today) announced that registration is open; please get your money and abstracts in by the deadline, which is March 7^th.
Also we need to discuss the subsequent HEAT dates, here are some suggestions:

• on every 3rd Thursday of the month?
• skip Apr due to the Kioloa workshop?
• switch back to noon to avoid any potential time conflict as last time?

Browse the files directory

This month we had possibly our best attendance ever, with the usual crowd joined by first-time attendees from UWA and of course our speaker (and colleague) from U. Adelaide:

Roger Clay "Recent Progress in Understanding the Highest Energy Cosmic Rays" (3.9 MB Powerpoint)

Roger gave a really interesting talk on some very exciting new results from the Pierre Auger Observatory which have received wide publicity via journal articles (Science, 9 Nov 2007) and even Wired.
During the discussion which followed Geoff reported on the Kioloa site (which I now discover I've been consistently misspelling) for our proposed HEA-meeting in April next year. We have now settled on the date, 20^th - 22^nd April, and we have formed a "local" organising committee and set up a webpage to share developments and meeting information: http://users.monash.edu.au/~dgallow/kioloa08. Stay tuned for more details!

Attendees: Zdenka Kuncic, Gemma Anderson, Shami Chatterjee, & Stephen Ng (USyd); Roberto Soria (MSSL); Roger Clay & Bruce Dawson (U. Adelaide); David Coward & Linqing Wen (UWA); and Duncan Galloway (Monash).

Apologies from: Bryan Gaensler

In this month's HEAT Anant Tanna, USyd honours student, gave a nice talk about his research project, which involves analysis of XMM-Newton observations of two SNRs:
"Strange galactic supernova remnants - the Tornado and G350"
Chris Hales, another USyd honours student, was unavailable and so will hopefully present something next time.
Geoff reported via Stephen that Kioloa was unavailable for the proposed April 17 & 18 workshop next year, so we moved to the following Monday & Tuesday, April 21 & 22.
Duncan announced a new postdoctoral opportunity at Monash from 2008, working on X-ray observations of accretion powered pulsars and thermonuclear burst sources, as well as a recent visit to SRON (Netherlands) and the Danish Space Center working on thermonuclear bursts.
Bryan reported on a recent meeting he attended: From Planets to Dark Energy: The Modern Radio Universe.
Ray Protheroe described his research interests in cosmic ray and neutrino astrophysics. Recently he has been involved in Ron Eker's project to detect Cerenkov radiation from neutrinos interacting with the moon.

Attendees: Bryan Gaensler, Aimee McNamara, Stephen Ng & Anant Tanna (USyd);
Ray Protheroe (UAdel); Roberto Soria (MSSL); and yours truly.

Apologies from: Chris Hales, Geoff Bicknell

Browse the files directory

Geoff and I are both overseas so Stephen kindly moved the time of the telecon to 4pm EST. Roberto Soria dialed in from MSSL, making this a very wide-spread HEAT indeed! Geoff is in Heidelberg working with Stefan Wagner on HESS data.

Also attending were:

Bryan Gaensler, Aimee McNamara, Stephen Ng & Gemma Anderson (USyd);
Geoff Bicknell (RSAA); and yours truly.

Apologies from: Gavin Rowell

In the news for high-energy types this week was the successful launch of AGILE, the Italian hard X-ray and γ-ray experiment, by an Indian launch vehicle. The science program for this instrument will be open to the international community. We could be seeing some additional new instrumentation in space thanks to the new NASA Explorer Program Announcement of Opportunity. For the next HEAT (date TBA) we hope to hear from some local experts on X-ray instrumentation to explore the possibilities of getting involved in some satellite projects.

Kinwah Wu was visiting from MSSL, as well as MIT's David Kaplan, who talked a little about his efforts (in collaboration with Shami) to do precision astrometry of magnetars, which led them to investigate possible distortions of the Chandra CCDs. Also attending were:

Bryan Gaensler, Shami Chatterjee, Aimee McNamara & Gemma Anderson (USyd);
Geoff Bicknell (RSAA); and yours truly.

Apologies from: Gavin Rowell

Stephen and Shami have kindly offered to help out with organising the telecons, beginning with today's. We plan to talk about what Chandra proposals we submitted and any other issues of interest. Also attending were:

Duncan Galloway (UMelb);
Geoff Bicknell (RSAA); Bryan Gaensler, Zdenka Kuncic (USyd).

Apologies from: Gavin Rowell

Browse the files directory

Kind of a quiet one this week, with quite a few regulars away. This week we heard from Stephen Ng who has just commenced as a postdoc at USyd, and has just submitted a new paper which will be out shortly at astro-ph/0702180. Also attending were:

Christine Chung & Duncan Galloway (UMelb);
Aimee McNamara (USyd, currently visiting UMelb);
Bryan Gaensler, Zdenka Kuncic (USyd).

Apologies from: Gavin Rowell, Shami Chatterjee, Ravi Sood & Stefan Dieters

Minutes

This week's telecon will be hosted by Gavin Rowell (U.Adelaide) who will talk about his research with HESS and related activities.

Browse the files directory

Bit of a rush job this time since I've been off work thanks to this little guy. A couple of new participants in the list of attendees this week:

Andrew Melatos, Christine Chung & Duncan Galloway (UMelb);
Stefan Dieters (UTas);
Bryan Gaensler, Zdenka Kuncic, Shami Chatterjee & Gemma Anderson (USyd);
Ravi Sood & Sean Farrell (ADFA) and
Geoff Bicknell (RSAA)

Apologies from: Gavin Rowell, Jasmina Lazendic Aimee McNamara & John Greenhill.

Browse the files directory

Welcome to the first of (hopefully) an ongoing series of high-energy astrophysics teleconferences. Below is a list of attendees for this week's meeting

Duncan Galloway (see also my summary page) & Jasmina Lazendic (UMelb);
Bryan Gaensler, Zdenka Kuncic, Aimee McNamara, Shami Chatterjee & Gemma Anderson (USyd);
Ravi Sood & Sean Farrell (ADFA; see also Sean's summary page) &
Geoff Bicknell (RSAA);

Apologies from: Gavin Rowell, Roger Clay, Matt Owers, Andrew Melatos and Christine Chung

Browse the images directory