HEAD Meetings
The Minutes of the Executive Committee meeting of the High Energy
Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.
January 9th, 2008 -- Austin, TX
The HEAD Executive Committee met on the evening of January 9, 2008 in
Austin Texas during the AAS meeting. Committee memberbers
participating in this meeting were Steve Murray (Chair), Mitch
Begelman (Vice-Chair), Cole Miller, Chris Reynolds, Julie McEnery and
Christine Jones (Sec-Treas).
Due to the attendance at the committee meeting of Kevin Marvel (AAS
Executive Officer) and John Vallerga, the initial exectutive committee
discussions concerned NASA funding for space missions and possible
future visits by scientists to congressional offices and the plans for
the April HEAD2008 meeting in LA.
The committee discussed the proposed special sessions for the
HEAD2008, and with the exception of one session which was not proposed
prior to the deadline, all were approved. These sessions are
Astrostatistics (statistical issues for the high energy X-ray and
gamma-ray data, with special emphasis on the new gamma-ray data
expected from GLAST and AGILE0), INTEGRAL (new results on AGN,
Gamma-ray lines and nucleosynthesis, X-ray binaries, magnetars and
GRBs, cyclotron lines, and blazars as weill as an overview of the
mission), Swift Non-Gamma-Ray Burst Session (Swift observations of
supernovae, comets, stellar superflares, novae, galaxies, AGN and
blazars as well as GI opportunities); NuSTAR (The Nuclear
Spectroscopic Telescope Array, a focusing hard X-ray observatory will
be launched in August 2011 and will map the sky at 6 to 80 keV with
more than 500 times the sensitivity of any previous hard X-ray
mission); Chandra X-ray Data Analysis (CIAO 4.0 software featuring
including a demonstration of the revised Sherpa fitting and CHiPS
plotting applications), GLAST (overview of the mission and scientific
opportunities, data releases, software, multiwavelength coordination),
Science Impacts of High Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy (Chandra and XMM
grating results for stellar coronae, white dwarfs, neutron stars,
supernova remnants, ISM, ICM and IGM, and AGN), Fundamental Physics
with Neutron Stars (QED effects in magnetars, equations of state,
masses and radii of neutron stars and tests for GR), X-rays and Planet
Formation (X-ray flaring and disks, indicators of PPD gas ionization,
theory of magnetized PPDs, isotopic evidence for an active early Sun),
future HEA Missions (e.g. eRosita, Con-X, Gen-X, NEXT, Simbol-X,
EXIST).
The Committee also discussed the possibility of setting up an award to
be given by HEAD for a PhD thesis in the field of high energy
astrophysics. The Committee agreed that this was worth pursuing and
Mitch Begelman as the incoming HEAD chair agreed to look into how
this award could be set up and to report back to the Committee.
The Executive Committee then discussed the nominations for the Rossi
Prize. Each nonimation was reviewed. After considerable discussion,
the Committee awarded the Rossi Prize to Steve Allen, Pat Henry, Maxim
Markevitch, and Alexey Vikhlinin for their work on clusters of galaxies.
These minutes were prepared by Christine Jones,
Secretary-Treasurer, High Energy Astrophysics Division,
American Astronomical Society.
