Dear Colleague,

please find below the second announcement of the IAU Symposium 336 'Astrophysical Masers: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe'

(apologies if you receive more than one copy of it).

Registration and abstract submission are now open!

Please distribute this announcement to all interested colleagues.

A. Tarchi, M. Reid, and S. Casu on behalf of the SOC and the LOC

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                           2nd announcement

       ### International Astronomical Union Symposium 336 ###

    Astrophysical Masers: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

          September 4-8, 2017 - Cagliari (Sardinia), Italy

Registration is now open for the IAU Symposium 336 on Astrophysical Masers to be held September 4-8, 2017.

SCIENTIFIC RATIONALE:

Astronomical masers touch on a very broad range of astrophysical phenomena.

Originally, maser research concentrated on star formation and evolved stars, where the high resolution afforded by bright maser emission allowed one to probe dynamics on ~1 AU scale and with ~ 1 km/s motions. A couple of decades ago, the discovery of water masers from accretion disks around super-massive black holes opened new avenues to resolve the disks, measure motions, estimate supermassive black hole masses, and derive distances to galaxies geometrically.

Over the past twenty years, there have been meetings focusing on masers spaced by roughly 5 years.  The last meeting devoted to masers was in 2012 in South Africa.  Since then there has been an explosion of work on masers, especially related to the cosmic distance scale, the structure of the Milky Way, and the masses of (AGN) black holes.

While the main focus of the Symposium is on cosmic masers, in order to broaden the impact of the Symposium, we will have also presentations from speakers outside the maser science community who work on similar topics as those listed below. In particular, the astrometric results reached using masers on the structure of the Milky Way and the cosmological distance  scale will be compared with those obtained using other methods (e.g., by the Gaia mission for the Galaxy and Cepheids and gravitational lensing for the extragalactic distance scale). We expect many talks on maser astrometry in the sessions on the Cosmic Distance Scale (Session 2), Galaxies and  Supermassive Black Holes (Session 3), the Structure of the Milky Way (Session 4), Star Formation (Session 5), Evolved Stars (Session 6).  We  also plan to have theoretical reviews of forefront questions for the major  science topics in each session.

Specific topics for this symposium will include:

- The Structure of the Milky Way

- Local Group Cosmology

- The Cosmic Distance Scale and the Hubble Constant

- Galaxy Kinematics and Black Hole Masses

- The Formation of Massive Stars

- Pulsation and Outflows in Evolved Stars

- Theory of masers and maser sources

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

Details are available on the conference website:

POSTER

The official poster of the Symposium is now presented at the link:

Please, feel free to print and display it in your Institute (recommended format: A3)

REGISTRATION AND FEE

The registration form is available at the link:

The registration fee is 300 euro until June 30, 2017, and 400 euros after this date. The registration fee includes the welcome reception, conference  materials, coffee breaks, lunches, conference dinner, and electronic proceedings.

If a hardback volume of the proceedings, in addition to the electronic  version, is desired the fee is of 360 and 460 euro for early and late registration, respectively.

Details on the fees and payment methods, are available at:

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

The IAU will provide a number of travel grants to support qualified scientists to whom only limited means of support are available, e.g.

colleagues from economically less privileged countries, young scientists and participants with young children.

Eligible participants are encouraged to apply for an IAU Travel Grant before April 1, 2017, by following the procedures reported at the link:

PRESENTATIONS

If you are interested in giving a presentation, either oral or in the form of a poster, please submit a title and abstract using the online submission form at the link:

You will need to first register for the workshop before being allowed to submit an abstract.

The deadline for abstract submission is July 15, 2017.

SOCIAL PROGRAM

The social program includes a trip to the Sardinia Radio Telescope site and the conference dinner. Tours of archaeological sites and sightseeing  trips around Cagliari are also planned.

VENUE

The symposium will be held in the Conference Room of the Hotel Regina Margherita. Adjacent to conference hall is a large foyer that will be used for the tea/coffee breaks and for posters. An additional meeting room is also made available to the symposium participants for media-press and/or ‘one-to-one’ meetings.

The Venue is located at walking distance from the central historical quarters of Cagliari. Cagliari itself is a enjoyable city with a variety of attractions for all visitors. Furthermore, the southern part of  Sardinia hosts among the most beautiful seashores of the entire island.

ACCOMMODATION

Block bookings of a limited number of rooms for the duration of the  meeting have been made at the Hotel Regina Margherita, Venue of the Symposium and in some other hotel facilities. Details on these facilities, together with a list of a number of alternative accommodations can be found at the link:

We recommend to book your accommodation as soon as possible since the  first half of September in Sardinia is still high season.

HOW TO GET TO CAGLIARI

The international airport of Cagliari is located 7km northwest of Cagliari.

It takes about 15 minutes to get from Cagliari Airport to the city center.

Transportation options available to passengers include taxi services, trains and rental vehicles. More details on how to get to Cagliari  are available at the link:

IMPORTANT DATES AND DEADLINES

Jan. 19   Registration and abstract submission opens

Apr.  1   Deadline for IAU Travel Grant requests

Jun. 15   Outcome of IAU Travel Grant requests(*)

Jun. 30   Deadline for early registration and payment

Jul. 15   Deadline for abstract submission

Aug. 10   Preliminary program available

(*) This date might be subjected to changes since it depends on the timeline  of the IAU grants selection procedure.

CONTACT

If you have questions about the meeting, feel free to contact us directly at : iaus336@oa-cagliari.inaf.it

We look forward to seeing you all in Cagliari.

A. Tarchi, M. Reid, and S. Casu on behalf of the SOC and the LOC

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