What's all this Astro-GR thing about?


"Astro-GR@X" represents a series of meetings which take place at X.  The
workshop aims to bring together astrophysicists, cosmologists, relativists and
data analysts, with the goal of building new collaborative relationships -as
well as strengthening existing ones- focused on the interpretation of
gravitational wave observations as a tool of astronomical discovery and a probe
of the fundamental physics of gravity.

The last two ones were at the AEI in 2006 and in Como in 2008 (have a look at
the corresponding entry in the menu). The next one was announced in Como by
Philippe Jetzer and will be in Zurich in 2010, at the Institute of Theoretical
Physics.
      

To be taken into account


The Five Golden Rules of Astro-GR are to:

Bring together Astrophysicists, Cosmologists, Relativists and Data analysts 
Motivate new collaborations and projects
Be run in the style of Aspen/ITP/Newton Institute/Modest meetings, 
with plenty of time for discussions 
Grant access to the slides in a cross-platform format, as e.g. pdf or odt
and, within reason, to the recorded movies of the talks (in a free
format which everybody can play, i.e. ogg) for those who could not attend,
following the good principles of open access

(read also the "Berlin Declaration" also, to get an idea of what we mean to do)

And, of course:


Apply the KISS principle (Keep It Simple and... Spontaneous):

it's informal
it's informal
repeat last item 10 times
recite aloud and backwards the Glagolitic alphabet five times
breathe deeply and, being zen, say again: "it's (oooom) i-n-f-o-r-m-a-l"

... you got it, didn't you??


What does informal mean? Well, it means here no registration fee, nor poster
presentation, nor proceedings. If you've never been to an Astro-GR meeting we
suggest you that you visit and read the pages linked in the menu at your left.
You could also download some of the talks (movies/slides) to get an idea of the
topics we covered.

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Philosophy to the 2W@AEI meeting (1-12 Sep.'08)


The 2W@AEI meeting is a new flavour: Whilst the Five Golden Rules 
will of course be fulfilled, we will

extend the meeting to two weeks (as in "2W"), from 1-12 September (2008)
drastically reduce the number of presentations

(which is already low at the regular Astro-GR meetings)

get an office to get work done

(or similar, a place with a desk, chair, connection and close to a coffee
machine)

have 1 or 2 30+10 min. presentations in the morning seminar

have a "powerpointless" seminar after lunch without time restriction

→ Somebody will volunteer to give a summary on an interesting topic at the
blackboard and two moderators (one Astro/ one GR or DA) will take care that the
discussion is fruitful

In 2006 we covered E/IMRIs and in 2008 we had a kind of brainstorm. This time
we're going to focus on galactic centres (with the Galactic Centre itself
as a reference, of course); this means

EMRIs and bursts
IMRIs
stellar-mass binaries

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Registration


The format and venue for the meeting will severely limit the number of
attendees, namely to 20 external (i.e. currently not working at the AEI).  

We thus kindly ask every participant to register as soon as s/he makes travel
arrangements and to avoid disappointment. Preference will be given to those
participants who stay for the whole time, i.e. for the two weeks and also
to those who firstly contact me.

To register just send me an e-mail (pau AT aei.mpg.de) with CC to Mrs Ute
Schlichting (Ute.Schlichting AT aei.mpg.de) with ALL the followings
details (missing information will delay your registration):

Name + Surname
Institute
How long do you plan to stay?
Area of interest for the purposes of this meeting
Would you like to give a talk? (work in progress also fine)

As for the accomodation, we have special rates with the following hotels:

Landhotel
Hotel Mercure Potsdam
NH Hotel Voltaire Potsdam

Please contact the hotel directly for your reservation, you will get the
special rate by telling that you come from Max-Planck.

Only people who want to have a room in our guesthouse should send Mrs Ute
Schlichting (Ute.Schlichting AT aei.mpg.de) an e-mail.

Regarding the venue, please check the link in the menu.

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Confirmed participants (institute)


 Tal Alexander (Weizmann) *
 Pau Amaro-Seoane (AEI and ICE IEEC-CSIC)
 Gaston Avila (AEI)
 Stas Babak (AEI)
 Leor Barack (Soton) *
 Curt Cutler (Caltech/JPL) *
 Melvyn B. Davies (Lund) *
 Orhan Donmez (AEI)
 Steve Drasco (AEI)
 Lee Samuel Finn (PSU) *
 Jon Gair (IoA Cambridge) *
 Iraj Gholami (AEI)
 A. Gopakumar (Jena) *
 Clovis Hopman (Leiden) *
 Dong-Hoon Kim (CalTech/AEI) *
 Badri Krishnan (AEI)
 Yuri Levin (Leiden) *
 Claudio Llinares (AIP Potsdam) *
 Ilya Mandel (Northwestern) *
 Cole Miller (UMD) *
 Kristen Menou (Columbia) *
 Antoine Petiteau (AEI)
 Ed Porter (AEI)
 Sterl Phinney (Caltech) *
 Miguel Preto (ARI) *
 Dirk Puetzfeld (AEI)
 Luciano Rezzolla (AEI)
 Alberto Sesana (PSU) *
 Bernard Schutz (AEI)
 Yu Shang (AEI)
 Carlos F. Sopuerta (ICE IEEC-CSIC) *
 Jonathan Thornburg (Indiana Univ.) *
 Mauri Valtonen (Tuorla Observatory) *
 John T Whelan (AEI, RIT)

(* = external)

      

Please sorry


If you finish/start a project during these two weeks at the AEI, we kindly ask
you to add a line to the ackn. section of the potential article which states
it. Something like "The work presented in this article was finished/started at
the 2W@AEI meeting at the Max-Planck Institut für Gravitationsphysik
(Albert Einstein-Institut), organised by blablabla etc". Take into account that
some money and a lot of time, sweat and blood was necessary to organise the
meeting :)

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