Fermi Guest Investigator Workshop - Welcome
January 29, 2009
Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research
University of Chicago, Chicago IL
Registration Deadline: January 28, 2009
The Fermi (formerly GLAST) launch earlier this year has ushered in a new era of high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics by providing observations with over an order of magnitude greater sensitivity relative to previous missions in this energy range. Studies of previously established gamma-ray emitters are being carried out with unprecedented detail. The expected emergence of new classes of gamma-ray sources means that gamma-ray astronomy will now encompass an expanded range of contemporary astrophysics and thus engage a broad portion of the astrophysics community. As a few examples, the leap in sensitivity opens up new opportunities for discovery in the area of active galaxies, the optical-UV extragalactic background light, pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, and searches for new phenomena such as signatures of particle dark matter.
The second Fermi Guest Investigator Announcement of Opportunity (AO) has now been released (see http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc) and provides substantial new funding opportunities. At the meeting we will describe Fermi's capabilities and performance, the data policy and release plan, guest investigator support and proposal tools, and how to propose to the Fermi AO. One of the goals of the workshop is to help connect people locally who have common science interests.
Topics at this workshop will include:
- Fermi overview and early highlights
- Multiwavelength connections
- Observing modes of the Fermi satellite
- Fermi guest investigator opportunities for Cycle 2 and beyond