Workshop rationale and aims

This scientific workshop will look at the synergies between the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and ESA’s Athena project. This follows previous successful Athena synergy exercises, eg. with ESO and SKA. The main aim of the workshop is to examine in some detail how the two projects can work together to enhance the scientific productivity of both. We are of course aware that the nominal overlap between Rubin and Athena operations is limited (but Rubin may easily be extended), but much good science can clearly be pursued directly through synergy between Athena and the LSST surveys.

The science areas identified for the workshop are AGN surveys/evolution, galaxies, clusters, stellar systems, and transients of all types. We hope the workshop itself will prove to be a stimulating event, but we also plan to write a synergy report summarising the conclusions of the workshop and placing the exercise in its wider astrophysical context.

This workshop is an invitation-only event that will take place online between 19-23 April 2021. The workshop will include a full program of invited talks together with in-depth parallel discussions of the main scientific themes.

Scientific organising committee/core team

• Steve Allen
• Antara Basu-Zych
• Keith Bechtol
• Niel Brandt
• Sergio Campana
• Nicolas Clerc
• Ashish Mahabal
• Mara Salvato
• Mike Watson (Chair, contact email address)

Organisational support

Athena community office

Workshop format

The workshop takes place over 5 working days, with each day’s session devoted to a single workshop topic. The sessions will last approximately 3 hours and will be scheduled to allow participation across the US and European time zones, ie late afternoon in Europe.

Each invited speaker is asked to pre-record their talk and upload this and their slides before the workshop for the benefit of all participants.

Each session will include:

• A shortened summary of the invited talks by the speakers, followed by questions.
• Parallel panel discussions, led by the invited panel co-chairs.
• A summary of the panel discussions by the co-chairs.

In addition, the first day’s session will include two introductory talks on the Rubin Observatory (LSST) project and the Athena mission given by senior members of these projects.

We very much hope that all participants will be able to attend as many sessions as possible in the spirit of making this a true workshop.

Instructions to all participants

The workshop will take place via Zoom. We strongly encourage you to download the latest version of Zoom to your laptop/device. We will be using Zoom break-out rooms for the parallel discussions.

The Zoom link has been sent to participants via email. Contact Mike Watson if you have not received this information.

There will be ~60 people in the workshop, so please use the raise hand facility if you want to ask a question or make a comment.

Pre-recorded talks/slides for the workshop

We have asked invited speakers to pre-record a full version of their talk before the workshop for the benefit of all participants. The access information for these talks/slides has been sent to participants by email, contact Mike Watson if you have not received this information.

We asked speakers to upload their contributions by April 14, but many talks are still awaited.

Programme

The programme is available here.

List of participants

The list of participants is available here.