[ASA] First announcement of Summer Schoool: New Era of the Cosmic Distance Scale

[Simon Ellingsen]

Dear Colleagues,

Please see the information below from Noriyuki Matsunaga.

We are pleased to make the 1st announcement for a 1-week summer school
on the Cosmic Distance Scale, to be held in Tokyo, Japan. This school
will cover a wide range of distance measurement techniques from
trigonometric parallaxes to cosmological distance measurements and
related scientific topics. Distinguished lecturers in various fields
will give dedicated lectures on the basics and cutting edge
of the field of distance measurement as well as on expected future
developments.

<Web site>
 http://stella.astron.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/CDSchool/

<School Period>
 June 29--July 3, 2015

<Venue>
 Hongo Campus of The University of Tokyo
 http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/about/documents/accessmap_E.pdf

<Language>
 English

<Invited Lecturers>
 Giuseppe Bono        - Theoretical backgrounds of pulsating stars
 Richard  de Grijs    - Distance scale and pitfalls
 Wendy    Freedman    - Cosmology from near to far
 Gerard   Gilmore     - Gaia: applications to the distance scale
 Shri     Kulkarni    - Supernovae
 Barry    Madore      - Population II distance indicators
 Francois Mignard     - Gaia: Principles and Techniques
 Takeo    Minezaki    - Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs)
 Grzegorz Pietrzynski - Eclipsing binaries
 Mark     Reid        - VLBI parallaxes
 Sherry   Suyu        - Gravitational lensing
 Masahiro Takada      - Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs)
 Patricia Whitelock   - Asymptotic Giant Branch Variables
 Daisuke  Yonetoku    - Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs)
 TBD                  - Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)

<Participants>
 We will mainly consider PhD course and master course students
 as well as early-career postdocs.
 The expected number of the participants is 80 including
 both international (~40) and domestic (~40) attendees.
 We will likely receive registration requests from senior researchers,
 but will give priority to younger participants in our selection.

<Participant presentations>
 We call for both oral and poster presentations by participants.
 There will be slots for a limited number of oral/poster
 presentations by participants, but selection will be made based on
 the abstracts and other information provided at registration.

<Social Events>
 We will organise a banquet and an excursion.
 Welcome cocktails and public lectures are also planned.

<School Evaluation>
 We will conduct a process evaluation of the summer school in
 collaboration with and endorsed by the International Astronomical
 Union's Office of Astronomy for Development through East Asian
 Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (EA-ROAD).
 The evaluation process will consist of asking prospective participants
 to answer a set of questions to gauge their level of understanding
 prior to the school, followed by a similar exercise towards the end of
 the school. This evaluation will offer us an opportunity to measure
 changes in participants' knowledge and understanding.
 This collaboration with the EA-ROAD will be useful in developing
 a framework to assess the efficacy of future summer schools
 supported by the International Astronomical Union.

<Important Dates>
 18 Feb 2015--1st announcement
 18 Feb 2015--Website opens.
 18 Feb 2015--Pre-registration opens.
 13 Mar 2015--2nd announcement
 13 Mar 2015--Registration opens.
 10 Apr 2015--Deadline for abstract submission and early registration
 late Apr 2015--Selection of presentations and travel support will
be notified.
 late Apr 2015--Registration closes.
 early June 2015--3rd announcement
 29 June 2015--School starts.

<Pre-registration>
 We encourage possible participants to pre-register.
 You will receive further information via e-mail.

<Registration Fee>
 Participants will be requested to pay the registration fee.
 A discount for participants who register early is foreseen.
 Please check these again in the next announcement.

<Scientific Rationale>

The Cosmic Distance Scale plays a fundamental role in a broad range of
topics in astronomy. This is because it is not easy to know distances
to astronomical objects and yet the distances are important to study
many characteristics of the objects, such as their luminosities and
masses, sizes and ages. An accurate distance scale is also required to
reconstruct the structure and evolution of the Universe itself.
Continuing efforts have been made to develop the Cosmic Distance Scale
ever since very early pioneering works such as the first measurements
of trigonometric parallaxes in the 19th Century and the discovery of
the period-luminosity relation of Cepheids around a hundred years ago.
There have been great advances in the recent decades; for example,
supernova distance measurments enabled us to discover the accelerating
expansion of the Universe. On the other hand, accurate measurements of
the cosmic background radiation made it possible to study the
structure and evolution of the Universe, which is one of the main
goals to establish the Cosmic Distance Scale.

An important aspect in measuring astronomical distances is that no
single method can be used for the entire range from the proximity
within the solar system to the distant Universe. Therefore, it is
important to keep the methods well-calibrated step-by-step from the
starting point based on trigonometric parallax. In this context, this
is a very exciting time because the Gaia will provide unprecedented
measurements of parallaxes in the very near future, which will have a
large impact on the entire range of the Cosmic Distance Scale. There
are also high-impact projects ongoing and planned, which will deliver
new insights into the structure of the Universe including several
projects led by Japan such as JASMINE, VERA, and, SuMIRe. While recent
developements of observational facilities and techniques have made it
feasible to measure distances to objects across the entire range of
the Universe, recent achievements have demonstrated that it is
important to make the distance indicators both precise and robust.
Such recent developements require us to understand the accuracy, range
of application, and limits to each method and how it is related to
other methods.

In this school, distinguished experts in various fields will give
lectures on the basic principles of the methods to the expected
progress in the near future. It will be a good opportunity to share a
broad perspective on the Cosmic Distance Scale among young astronomers
who will play an active role in a wide range of astronomy. The Cosmic
Distance Scale indeed covers various fields of astronomy which are
related to one another, and this school will also offer a chance to
spend time with international young astronomers working in different
subfields.

<Committees>
SOC:
Giuseppe Bono       (University of Rome Tor Vergata)
Richard  de Grijs   (Kavli Institute, Peking University)
Mamoru   Doi        (Co-chair; Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Naoteru  Gouda      (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)
Mareki   Honma      (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)
Noriyuki Matsunaga  (Co-chair; Department of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Takeo    Minezaki   (Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Ken'ichi Nomoto     (Kavli IPMU, The University of Tokyo)
Hiromoto Shibahashi (Department of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Naotaka  Suzuki     (Kavli IPMU, The University of Tokyo)
Tomonori Totani     (Department of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Yuzuru   Yoshii     (Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)

LOC:
Noriyuki Matsunaga  (Chair; Department of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Takeo    Minezaki   (Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Tomoki   Morokuma   (Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo)
Nobuyuki Sakai      (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)
Takuji   Tsujimoto  (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)

<Sponsors>
This summer school has received funding from
the following programmes (more information such
as grant numbers are available in our web site).
- Ito International Research Center Symposium
- European Union's Seventh Framework Programme
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the JSPS
- Others to be confirmed.

<Contact>
LOC - cdschool_loc (at) astron.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp


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