The 2009 Fermi Symposium

INTERNATIONAL Fermi SYMPOSIUM -- FIRST BULLETIN

2-5 November 2009, Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, USA

This is the second meeting in the series of International GLAST (now Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope) Symposia. Fermi 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 and other bright sources from 8 keV to 30 MeV. With its successful launch on June 11, 2008 and start of science operations in August, Fermi has opened up new and important opportunities to study a wide variety of high-energy phenomena, including black holes and active galactic nuclei; gamma-ray bursts; pulsars; the origins, propagation, and fluxes of cosmic rays; magnetars; probes of the optical-UV extragalactic background light; diffuse emissions; new source classes; solar physics; and searches for signals of hypothetical new phenomena such as dark matter particle annihilations. In addition to the many published results, fast transient alerts and monitored fluxes have been routinely released, the first LAT Bright Source List and mission science tools were released on schedule in February 2009, and the continuous release of gamma-ray event data will start later this summer, as planned. Following the very successful first symposium held at Stanford in February 2007, this meeting will focus on the new scientific investigations enabled by Fermi, the mission and instrument characteristics, opportunities for guest investigators, and coordinated observations and analyses. As at the Stanford meeting, we expect this will be a great opportunity to think about the gamma-ray data in new ways and for individuals to cross over into new areas of investigation.

I. WEB PAGE

Please visit the updated conference web pages at http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/symposium/2009/ for information about the meeting. In particular, please see the the links for registration, informational email sign-up, organizing committees, and accommodations.

II. REGISTRATION

The Symposium registration fee is $395 until 1 October. After that time, the registration fee will be $450. To help us plan, please visit the announcements sign-up page (http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/symposium/2009/signup.php) to register your interest in the symposium, if you have not done so already.

III. ABSTRACTS

Abstracts for proposed scientific contributions to the Symposium are welcome. The submission portal will be open later this summer. The default mode of contributions will be posters, which will be displayed in two, two-day sessions during the meeting. A subset of the abstracts will be selected by the organizers for inclusion in either the parallel oral sessions or the contributed talk portions of the plenary sessions. In addition to Fermi science, poster and parallel oral contributions on relevant analysis techniques and the status of related facilities (current and future) are welcome. The abstract submission deadline is 1 October.

IV. PROGRAM UPDATES

A more detailed program, including the list of invited talks, will be posted on the web site soon. In addition to talks about Fermi and the opportunities for Guest Investigators, topics include AGN; Pulsars, Supernova Remnants, Binaries, Cosmic Rays; Spatially Extended Sources and Diffuse Emissions; Surveys and Population Studies, New Point Source Classes; GRBs and Solar Flares; EBL studies; and Dark Matter and New Physics Search Windows.

V. POSTER

The meeting poster is linked to the web page, and is available here: http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/symposium/2009/Symposium_Flyer_09.pdf

VI. EVENING PUBLIC PROGRAM

An exciting program to celebrate astronomical discovery is being planned for Monday 2 November at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The musical celebration will include the world premiere of the symphony, "Cosmic Reflections", performed by the Boston University Symphony Orchestra, as well as music performed by the American Brass Quintet. A brief science presentation is also being planned for the event, which is open to the public. More details will be announced soon.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Information about the Fermi mission can be found at http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/. Information about the LAT instrument and international collaboration can be found at http://www-fermi.stanford.edu/. Information about the GBM instrument and international collaboration can be found at http://gammaray.nsstc.nasa.gov/gbm/. Information about the Fermi Science Support Center, Guest Investigator Program, and Einstein Fellows Program, can be found at http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/.