AUSTIN, Texas—More than 700 physicists, astronomers and cosmologists are expected to attend the Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, an international conference set for Monday (Dec. 11) through Friday (Dec. 15) at the Austin Convention Center, 500 E. Cesar Chavez.
The astronomy and physics departments at The University of Texas at Austin are hosting the event, which has been held every two years since the mid-1960s, when black holes were considered purely hypothetical. Like the expanding universe, subject matter at the conference has grown to include such crucial topics in relativistic astrophysics and related fields as particle physics in the cosmos, string theory, nuclear processes in the universe and multi-dimensional cosmology.
UT Austin’s Dr. Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate and author of the acclaimed popular exposition of cosmology, “The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe,” will give the summary talk on the main contributions of the conference on Friday (Dec.15). New results are expected from the Chandra and Newton X-ray observatories and the recently-launched High Energy Transient Explorer – HETE2. Other topics include the following:
Monday, Dec. 11
The Brane World – Nima Arkani-Hamed, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Particle Dark Matter Search – Rita Bernabei, University of Rome
New Evidence for WIMPS – Blas Cabrera, Stanford University
Cosmic Background Radiation – Paolo de Bernardis, Universita La Sapienza
X-ray Background and Census of Quasars – Amy Barger, Universities of Hawaii and Wisconsin
Tuesday, Dec.12
Recent Results from Super-Kamiokande – Masayuki Nakahata, University of Tokyo
Gravitational Lensing – Genevieve Soucail, Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees
Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays – Alan Watson, University of Leeds
Black Holes in Galaxies – John Kormendy, The University of Texas at Austin
Wednesday, Dec. 13
Gamma-Ray Bursts – Shri Kulkarni, Caltech
Gamma-Ray Burst Theory – Tsvi Piran, Hebrew University
X-rays, Accretion Disks, Strong Gravity, Black Holes – Andy Fabian, Cambridge
High Energy Phenomena in Quasars – Laura Maraschi, University of Milan
Thursday, Dec. 14
Magnetars and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars – Chryssa Kouveliotou, NASA MSFC
Convection-Dominated Accretion Flows into Black Holes – Igor Igumenshchev,
Institute of Astronomy, Moscow, and Marek Abramowicz, Goteborg University, Sweden
Quintessence and Accelerating the Universe – Paul Steinhardt, Princeton University
NRC Committee Report on Physics of the Universe – Michael Turner, Chicago
Friday, Dec. 15
General Relativity – Bernd Schmidt, Albert Einstein Institute, Potsdam
The Dark Matter Crisis – Ben Moore, University of Durham
Rapporteur Summary – Steven Weinberg, The University of Texas at Austin
For more information, contact Dr. Steve Maran, 20th Texas Symposium Press Officer, at (301) 286-5154, hrsmaran@eclair.gsfc.nasa.gov or Amy Hendrick, 20th Texas Symposium Coordinator with the UT Austin astronomy department (512) 471-1305, hendrick@astro.as.utexas.edu
Reporters wishing to cover the event must register online using the registration form on the Symposium Web site http://texas-symposium.org
