Please find below the final announcement of IAU Symposium 336:

"Astrophysical Masers: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe"

***Note: The deadline for Early Registration is June 30***

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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                           Final announcement

       ### International Astronomical Union Symposium 336 ###

    Astrophysical Masers: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

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

The deadline for Early Registration and Early Fee payment is June 30, 2017.

Block booking deadline is June 30 for all hotels.

More details on the outreach and social programmes are now available.

Please, visit the conference website:

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

REGISTRATION AND FEE

The Early Registration deadline is June 30, 2017.

Until this date, the registration fee is 300 euros, and 400 euros after this date. The registration fee includes the welcome reception, conference materials, coffee breaks, lunches, conference dinner, visit to the SRT site, and electronic proceedings.

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

The registration form is available at the link:

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

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.

Block booking deadline is June 30 for all hotels.

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

Details on these facilities, together with a list of a number of alternative accommodations can be found at the link:

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:

We do suggest to book your flights as soon as possible since, especially  in summer, Sardinia is a major holiday destination.

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 AND OUTREACH PROGRAMMES

The free afternoon is presently scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 6.  On that date, a visit to the Sardinia Radio Telescope site will take place, which will include a typical Sardinian lunch buffet and a tour of an archaeological site in the surroundings.

The conference dinner will be held in the historical complex of 'La Corte in Giorgino' on Thursday, September 7. A description of this unique location can be found at http://www.addv.info/lacorteingiorgino/en/home

Additional tours of interesting sites and sightseeing trips around Cagliari  are presently in the process of being defined.

Details of the social programme can be found at:

In the framework of the Educational and Outreach activities to be carried  out during the Symposium, a public lecture will be held in the late  afternoon of Friday, September 8 by the IAU General Secretary, Prof.

 Piero Benvenuti.

More details on the Educational and Outreach programme can be found at:

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES AND DEADLINES

>>>> Jun. 30   Deadline for early registration and payment <<<<

     Jul. 15   Deadline for abstract submission

     Aug. 10   Preliminary programme available

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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