The First GLAST Symposium

FIRST GLAST SYMPOSIUM -- FIRST BULLETIN

5-8 February 2007, Stanford University, Stanford, CA USA

I. WEB PAGE

Please visit the conference web pages at:
http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/symposium/2007/

II. PURPOSE

This is the first meeting in the series of International GLAST Symposia. The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, GLAST, is a mission to discover and study cosmic gamma-ray sources in the energy range 20 MeV to >300 GeV, with supporting measurements for gamma-ray bursts from 10 keV to 25 MeV. With its launch in Fall 2007, GLAST will open a new and important window on a wide variety of high-energy phenomena, including black holes and active galactic nuclei; gamma-ray bursts; pulsars; the origin of cosmic rays and their relation to supernova remnants; probes of the optical-UV EBL; new source classes; solar physics; and searches for signals of hypothetical new phenomena such as particle dark matter annihilations, extra dimensions, Lorentz invariance violation, and other relics from the Big Bang. The first Guest Investigator Cycle will start in 2007, with proposals due soon after the Symposium. More information about the mission can be found at http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov and at links therein. The first Symposium will focus on the new scientific investigations enabled by GLAST, mission and instrument characteristics, analysis tools and opportunities for guest investigators, and coordinated observations and analyses. It is expected that the second Symposium will occur approximately 18 months later.

III. SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATION

The International Organizing Committee members are:

W. B. Atwood (UCSC)
G. Barbiellini (Trieste)
R. Blandford (KIPAC/Stanford)
E. Bloom (SLAC)
C. Dermer (NRL)
B. Dingus (LANL)
N. Gehrels (GSFC, U. Maryland, & PSU)
P. Giommi (ASDC)
I. Grenier (CEA)
J. Grindlay (Harvard)
W. Hermsen (SRON)
C. Kouveliotou (MSFC/NSSTC)
G. Lichti (MPE)
K. Makishima (Tokyo)
J. McEnery (GSFC)
C. Meegan (MSFC/NSSTC)
P. Michelson (Stanford)
J. Ormes (Denver)
M. Pohl (Iowa)
S. Ritz (GSFC and U. Maryland)

The local organizing committee members are:

Peter Michelson
Tuneyoshi Kamae
Lucy Zhou
Rosenna Yau
Nancy Christiansen
Patrick Nolan
Olaf Reimer
Ziba Mahdavi

IV. VENUE

The conference will be held in the Frances Arrilliga Alumni Center on the Campus of Stanford University. Free parking is available. Many options for lunch are located a short walk away. Blocks of nearby hotel rooms have been reserved. Please visit the conference web page for booking information and DEADLINES. A Conference Banquet will be held at the Stanford Faculty Club on Tuesday evening.

V. POSTERS, PARALLEL SESSIONS, PROCEEDINGS

There will be ample room for poster display and time set aside in the program for poster viewing and discussions on Monday and Tuesday. Most of the program will be devoted to plenary sessions, however there will also be two sets of parallel sessions on Wednesday afternoon.

Proceedings will be published in book form by AIP. The Proceedings will also be linked to the ADS and will be available on the web. Talk slides and posters will also be archived on the conference website.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Symposium contact person: Steve Ritz (steve.ritz@nasa.gov).
Local contact person: Lucy Zhou (lucyzhou@stanford.edu)

The second conference bulletin will be circulated soon with more details about the scientific program, registration, and conference deadlines. Please note the deadline for abstracts will be 15 December.

Information about the LAT instrument and international collaboration can be found at:
http://www-glast.stanford.edu.

Information about the GBM instrument and international collaboration can be found at:
http://gammaray.nsstc.nasa.gov/gbm.

Information about the GLAST Science Support Center, Guest Investigator Program, and GLAST Fellows Program, can be found at:
http://glast.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/.