Notes on the 6th IACHEC Working Groups teleconference

26-Feb-2010, WebEX

Participants: V.Burwitz (VB), F.Haberl (FH), C.Grant (CG), M.Guainazzi(MG),
H.Marshall (HM), L.Natalucci (LN), J.Nevalainen (JN), P.Plucinsky (PP),
A.Pollock (AP), S.Sembay (SS)

Apologies: M.Tsujimoto (MT)


1.Organisation of the 6th IACHEC meeting
========================================

1.1 Logistics
-------------

 The contract with Villa Grazioli has been signed. ESA has granted a
contribution of 4700 Euros, which will cover the meeting room and wireless
connection costs. A draft registration web page has been set-up
(http://web.mit.edu/iachec/meetings/index.html). We plan to announce it once
the list of key speakers is defined, anyhow no later than mid-January given the
registration deadline (March 11, 2011).


1.2 Meeting structure
---------------------

 The meeting will have the usual 3.5 days structure:

Sunday, April 10
----------------
- Arrival of the participants

Monday, April 11
----------------
- Morning: Calibration status of operational missions
- Afternoon: Summary of Working Group activities

Tuesday, April 12
-----------------
- Morning: Working Group meetings
- Afternoon: Special Session I

Wednesday, April 13
-------------------
- Morning: Working Group meetings
- Afternoon: Special Session II

Thursday, April 14
------------------
- Morning: Working Group reports and conclusions 

 A few "theoretical" talks will be conveniently fit-in depending on the number
of requested talks


1.3 Special sessions
--------------------

 It is agreed that the two special sessions will be on:

I. treatment of systematic uncertainties and statistical biases in calibrations
   (organised by A.Pollock - Chair -, H.Marshall, J.Nevalainen, and S.Sembay).
   As we already had a session covering theoretical aspects of this topic at
   the Woods Hole meeting, this session shall focus primarily on practical
   aspects (reminder: J.Drake and V.Kashyap volunteered to offer a tutorial of
   their software). AP will report at the next meeting on a list of contacted
   key speakers for this session

ACTION 101124/1 on AP: contact key speakers for the Special Session I
		Deadline: next meeting

II. future missions (organised by M.Guainazzi - Chair -, P.Plucinsky, S.Sembay)
    This session will be divided into
    * a round of presentations on the overall status, ground-based calibration
      (if any) results, and on-flight calibration plan (if any) of planned
      approved missions: Astro-H, Astrosat, GEMS, HXMT, NuStar,
      Spectrum X-Gamma/eROSITA
    * a round table discussion on lessons learnt from calibrations of
      operational missions, and how they can be fed back into the on-flight
      calibration plan of future missions. This round table discussion will
      be articulated around a few key questions to be prepared and introduced
      by the session organisers. After the publication of the announcement,
      MG will contact the IACHEC contact points for the above mission to ensure
      that each of them sends at least a representative to the meeting, and
      to specify the kind of presentation we would wish from them

ACTION 101124/1 on MG: contact the IACHEC contact point for future missions
		       to make sure that they are aware of the IACHEC meeting,
		       and that it is clear which kind of presentation we wish
		       from them
		Deadline: after publication of the first announcement


1.4 Key speakers
---------------

 Apart from the key speakers in the Special Sessions, the following additional
potential "key speakers" have been identified:

- D.Patnaude: variability of SNR features (possible back-ups: J.Vink, C.Wilson-
  Hodge): PP will follow-up
- Crab X-ray emission model theoretician: LN will follow-up with M.Weisskopf
- T.Rauch (WD atmospheric model): VB will follow-up


AOB
===

 The next meeting will be held around mid-December, to review the status
of key speakers availability and give the final green-light to the meeting
announcement.

 MG will investigate a solution to the voice echo problem, which has plagued
this first WebEX experience.