First Announcement
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# Abstract submission will be open from Feb. 4 to April 4, 2008 #
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Dear colleagues,
The Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon (CRAL) and Institut de
Physique Nucléaire de Lyon (IPNL) are proud to announce the
second international conference in the CRAL/IPNL Conference Series:
"Dark Energy and Dark Matter: Observations, Experiments and Theories"
to be held July 7-11, 2008 in the beautiful city of Lyon, France.
(http://cralconf.univ-lyon1.fr)
The conference will cover the following main themes (see further for
the full rationale):
- Dark Energy:
* Cosmology by Distance
* CMB, Large Scale Structures and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
* Cosmology by the Growth of Structure
* Relativistic Cosmology
- Dark Matter:
* Astrophysical Evidence for Dark Matter
* Theoretical Candidates and Models for Dark Matter
* Direct and Indirect Searches for Particle Dark Matter
Reviewers and invited speakers include:
* Elena Aprile
* Alain Blanchard
* George Ellis
* Kathy Freese
* Syksy Rasanen
* Subir Sarkar
* Carlo Schimd
* Brian Schmidt
* Dominik Schwarz
Registration will open on February 4 2008 and we encourage you to apply early.
See our web site for information and registration:
http://cralconf.univ-lyon1.fr
It is possible to subscribe to the conference's pre-registration newsletter
and receive up-to-date information on the forthcoming deadlines. This
mailing list is moderated so no spam can be sent through it. To register,
send an email to
sympa@listes.univ-lyon1.fr
containing only:
SUBSCRIBE dm-lyon2008
in the body of the message. There is no need for a subject.
Looking forward to seeing you in Lyon!
The Local Organizing Committee
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Scientific Rationale:
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Doubtlessly, the major outstanding quests in current cosmological
research are the explanation of dark energy and dark matter. Speaking
in terms of cosmological models, both are problems that arise in the
standard model of cosmology, i.e. if we assume that the Universe in
the large is effectively modelled by a homogeneous-isotropic solution
of Einstein's laws of gravitation. Furthermore, there are a number of
astrophysical results that call for the existence of dark Matter.
The hunt for dark matter is entering an exciting phase as experiments
are starting to check the predictions of supersymmetric particle
models. Direct searches with a number of different technologies are
preparing to scale up to several tens of kilograms, while indirect
ones are yielding intriguing results. The LHC will also enter the
fray for supersymmetry soon, and alternative theories for dark matter
are being advanced.
We may put the wide spectrum of research directions pursued to resolve
these problems into essentially three categories: the first assumes
that the missing sources in Einstein's equations are fundamental,
e.g. one conjectures the existence of a repulsive cosmic fluid
modeling dark energy and, furthermore, the existence of new weakly
interacting massive dark matter particles providing challenges also
for the standard model of particle physics. The second concludes that
these dark components are an expression of the fact that the laws of
gravitation have to be modified, so that theories other than Einstein
gravity are invoked that may give rise to an explanation of the dark
components in terms of effective (geometrical) sources or modifications
of the gravitational laws on the respective scales of the problems.
Finally, the third aims at generalizing the model priors, while
remaining within the framework of general relativity.
In this conference we focus on a number of observational results and
ongoing astronomical projects and astrophysical experiments that
support the existence of dark energy and dark matter. We try to
structure the presentation of astronomical and experimental data so
that they can be confronted with model priors entering their
interpretation. In this spirit we aim at backing the observational
and experimental sides of the problems with theoretical approaches
that help to explain the physical properties explored. Astronomical
observations are, thus, mainly exposed to the third of the
above-mentioned research directions. This helps to concentrate on
the observational issues addressed without, however, covering all
possible paths of theoretical dark energy search. As for dark matter
we also cover the first of the above-mentioned research directions of
finding and constraining properties of fundamental dark matter particles.
Scientific Organising Committee
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* Elena Aprile Columbia University, USA
* Gabriel Chardin Université Paris Sud, France
* George F.R. Ellis University of Cape Town, South Africa
* Kari Enqvist University of Helsinki, Finland
* Saul Perlmutter University of California Berkeley, USA
* Pierre Salati Université de Savoie, France
* Brian P. Schmidt The Australian National University, Australia
Local Organising Committee
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Marie Berthier, Antoine Bouchard, Thomas Buchert, Yannick Copin,
Philippe Di Stefano, Eric Emsellem, Jean-Francois Gonzalez,
Emmanuel Pécontal (chair), Emilie Wernli
Practical Issues
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We encourage you to register as soon as possible as we will
limit the total number of participants :
** the deadline for submitting an abstract is April 4
** the deadline for registering is June 6.
Fees are 250 euros (including the conference dinner, and
proceedings), and 300 euros for late payment (after June 6).
The fees can be paid BEFORE June 6, via bank wiring
(a procedure to pay via Credit Card will soon be implemented):
see the registration section on the web site for details.
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