Studies of Star and Planet Forming Regions with Herschel

Description and Aim week 4 – 8 June 2012

The aim is to bring together team members from both the DIGIT and WISH Key Programs, focusing on spectroscopy, but including imaging and photometry. The goal is to combine the lessons learned from these two programs. We plan a focus on low mass star/planet formation in the first half of the week and on higher mass stars in the latter half.

Description and Aim week 11 – 15 June 2012

Background:

The Herschel space telescope is providing a powerful platform for imaging and spectroscopy in the far-infrared and the portions of the submillimeter wavelength regime that are blocked by absorbers in the Earth’s atmosphere.

By the summer of 2012, the various Herschel Key Programmes will have had time to analyze their data and will be at the stage of synthesis.

We believe that a week of discussion among representatives of the many teams working on star formation will lead to a very effective synthesis of understanding.

Plan:

Each group would present a brief, top-level report on results on the first day, followed by initial discussion of common themes. On the second day, we would identify who should join each working group (listed on agenda, but can be evolved by discussion). The rest of the meeting is built around the inter-team thematic working groups, which will meet and report back in daily plenary sessions in the mornings and late afternoons. The last day will be devoted to a plenary session in which we summarize our understanding and identify areas for further work and collaboration.

Outcome:

The goal is to have an agreed-upon set of “things-learned”, along with identification of unresolved issues that may profit from further cross-team interactions, and a common idea about how to move forward with follow-up observations.