Looking AHEAD to soft gamma-ray Astrophysics: prospects and challenges
The exploration of the Universe has recently ushered in the multi-messenger and big data era. In the coming decades, the study of astrophysical sources and processes dominated by strong gravity, dark matter, extreme particle acceleration, relativistic shocks, nucleosynthesis of heavy elements, matter at nuclear densities will benefit from ground and space gravitational interferometers and an ensemble of wide-field, high-cadence and sensitive surveys that will span the electromagnetic spectrum from radio to X-ray and TeV, along with next-generation high-energy neutrino experiments. In these studies, the hard-X-ray/soft gamma-ray band remains unique in addressing several outstanding questions regarding, for example, the emission mechanisms of a variety of sources, the metal production from supernovae, and the mysterious origin of the 511 keV positron annihilation line from the Galactic Center. Nevertheless, a breakthrough in terms of flux sensitivity and angular resolution in this energy band is still needed. This workshop aims to discuss open science issues in soft gamma-ray astrophysics, along with the technological prospects and challenges.
Specific topics include:
- Multi-messenger astrophysics: Gamma-ray bursts and other high-energy transients
- Nuclear astrophysics: from novae to kilonovae and supernovae
- The 511 keV line emission from the Galactic Center and other sources
- Hard X-/soft gamma-ray emission from compact binary sources and magnetars
- The high-energy tail of AGN emission
- X and Gamma-ray polarimetry
- New technologies for hard X-ray soft gamma-ray observations: detectors and
focusing techniques - Current projects and new mission concepts
Conference poster (download link)
Many thanks to all the participants to the workshop! You can find all the presentations at this link.
Invited Speakers:
- Lorenzo Amati, INAF-OAS Bologna (Italy)
- Nicolas Barrière, Cosine Measurement Systems (The Netherlands)
- Roberto Battiston, University of Trento (Italy)
- Luciano Burderi, University of Cagliari (Italy)
- Roland Diehl, Technical University of Munich (Germany)
- Fabrizio Fiore, INAF-OATS Trieste (Italy)
- Savitri Gallego, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (Germany)
- Diego Götz, CEA/DSM/IRFU (France)
- Erika Holmbeck, University of California (USA)
- Weichun Jiang, CAS/IHEP (China)
- Carolyn Kierans, Goddard Space Flight Center (USA)
- Sandro Mereghetti, INAF-IASF Milano (Italy)
- Lorenzo Natalucci, INAF/IAPS Rome (Italy)
- Giovanni Pareschi, INAF-OA Brera (Italy)
- Davide de Salvador, University of Padua (Italy)
- Andrea Santangelo, University of Tübingen (Germany)
- Thomas Siegert, Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg (Germany)
- Paolo Soffitta, INAF/IAPS, Rome (Italy)
- Giulia Stratta, Goethe University, Frankfurt (Germany)
- Lev Titarchuk, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Alexandra Veledina, University of Turku (Finland)
- Andrzej Zdziarski, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Warsaw (Poland)
- Bing Zhang, University of Nevada (USA)
SOC Members:
- Marco Ajello, Clemson Univeristy (USA)
- Monica Colpi, University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy)
- Enrico Costa, INAF-IAPS Rome (Italy)
- Rui Curado Da Silva, LIP Coimbra (Portugal)
- Roland Diehl, MPE, Garching (Germany)
- Tiziana Di Salvo, University of Palermo (Italy)
- Imma Donnarumma, ASI (Italy)
- Filippo Frontera, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Chris Fryer, LANL, Los Alamos (USA)
- Cristiano Guidorzi, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Lorraine Hanlon, UCD, Dublin (Ireland)
- Philippe Laurent, CEA, Paris (France)
- Lara Nava, INAF-OAS Brera (Italy)
- Lorenzo Natalucci, INAF-IAPS Rome (Italy)
- Elena Pian, INAF-OAS Bologna (Italy)
- Francesco Recchia, University of Padua (Italy)
- Piero Rosati, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Shuang Nan Zhang, IHEP, Bejing (China)
LOC Members:
- Lisa Ferro, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Cristiano Guidorzi, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Romain Maccary, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Andrea Mazzolari, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Lorenzo Bazzanini, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Manuele Maistrello, University of Ferrara (Italy)
- Piero Rosati, University of Ferrara (Italy)
