Betelgeuse Workshop 2012 - Sciencesconf.org

Betelgeuse Workshop 2012

The physics of Red Supergiants: recent advances and open questions

26-29 Nov 2012 Paris (France)

Betelgeuse Workshop 2012

The Proceedings, containing 36 contributions, have been published by EDP Sciences in the EAS conference series: table of contents

(2013, Volume 60)

The SOC warmly thanks all the participants of the Betelgeuse Workshop !

A few photographs are available in the photo gallery.

The Programme Book of the Workshop can be downloaded here (PDF format, 3.1Mb).

Mass loss from evolved massive stars is a major contributor to the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium, the Galaxy, and ultimately the Universe. To have a clear view of their cosmic impact, it is essential to understand their physics, from the photosphere to the interstellar medium (ISM). The violent convective motions, low surface gravity, and high luminosity combine to trigger an intense stellar wind. As the distance from the star increases, the ejected material forms molecules, then dust particles. But this general picture is still fragmentary. For instance, the structure of the convection, the composition and molecular content of the wind, the role of the magnetic field, or the chemical evolution of dust particles (surface chemistry, growth of dust grains) remain poorly known.

Thanks to its proximity and brightness, Betelgeuse is a particularly important fiducial object to study in details the physical phenomena at play in red supergiants (RSGs). Impressive progress has been made recently on our understanding of this star, thanks to new observations from the VLT, Herschel, VLA and other facilities, and important advances in theory and numerical simulations - e.g. 3D hydrodynamic convection simulations and mass loss models.

The goal of the workshop is to assemble a comprehensive description of the different regions constitutive of Betelgeuse, to understand how they interact with each other, and eventually how red supergiants are functioning.

Workshop format

We aim at a genuine workshop format with many opportunities for exchanges among 50 participants who actively carry out research on Betelgeuse, and/or on similar objects. Each session will start with an invited overview talk and will be closed by a discussion.

The workshop venue will be at Paris Observatory. During four days, 22 oral contributions and 8 posters will be presented and discussed. The posters will be exhibited during the whole workshop. Proceedings will be published in the European Astronomical Society Publications series.

Overview/review contributions, synthesis of past progress, and new observational and modeling results are equally appropriate for this workshop. Prospective participants are invited to register and to submit a title and an abstract related to topical sessions before September 15. The scientific organizing committee will select oral contributions and posters so that the topics in each session are well balanced. After Sept. 15, the submitted abstracts will only be considered for poster presentations. Multiple contributions are acceptable with the understanding that at most one may be oral and the others will be posters.

The registration fees (100 euros) will include coffee breaks, four lunches at Paris Observatory restaurant, a visit to the Cassini exhibit, a copy of the proceedings, and a social event. Further details are available on the payment page.

The second announcement has been issued on July 17, 2012 (see below to download the PDF file).

Online user: 1