Notes of the 16th teleconference of the IACHEC Working Group Chairs WebEX 17 December 2013 Participants: D.Burrows (DB), V.Burwitz (VB), C.Grant (CG), M.Guainazzi (MG), H.Marshall (HM), E.Miller (EM), L.Natalucci (LN), J.Nevalainen (JN), P.Plucinsky (PP), S.Sembay (SS) 1. 9th IACHEC meeting logistics ------------------------------- A draft registration page has been set-up by Penn State. Before making it public: * the Airlie Center has to set-up their own hotel registration page * we need to finalize the meeting fee. The final number will depend on the funding contributions. The Swift Project has already confirmed some financial support, CfA and NASA are in their decision process. PP will contact the CfA administration to solicit an answer. The registration web page will contain: * widgets where prospective participants can specify if they want to give a talk, its title, and in which session the talk should be scheduled. This information will be collected by DB, and passed over to MG once the registration deadline expires. MG is in charge compiling a first complete draft of the scientific program, to be validated by the WG Chairs * the number of nights to be booked Once the registration web page is complete, MG will circulate the 2nd meeting announcement to the IACHEC mailing list. Registration deadline is March 1, 2014. 2. Meeting structure -------------------- The meeting will have the usual structure: - 1st day morning I: calibration status of operational missions - 1st day morning II: preparation status of future missions - 1st day afternoon: WGs meet - 2nd day morning: Special session I - 2nd day afternoon: WGs meet - 3rd day morning: Special session II - 3rd day afternoon: WGs meet - 4th day morning: WGs reports The following "Special Sessions" have been proposed: a. "Legacy", whose goals will be: * present the charter of the "IACHEC Legacy Working Group". A draft of this charter will be prepared by MG (according to an action item from the 8th IACHEC meeting), and circulated to the WG Chairs before the 9th meeting for comments * discuss lessons learnt on ground calibrations, which could be beneficial for instrument teams working in the development of future mission The relative weight of these topics will depend on how many colleagues directly involved in the ground calibration of future mission are attending the 9th IACHEC meeting. We agreed on probing future mission instrument teams as follows: . Astrosat: SS . Astro-H: MG/EM . "Athena+": SS . DIOS: EM/HM . eRosita: VB . HXMT: MG . NICER: CG An Italy-led proposal is being prepared seeking funds for a multi-institute facility supporting the high-energy astronomical European community. LN will enquire with the PI (L.Piro) if the proposers are interested to present this idea at the 9th IACHEC meeting. b. "Paths to cross-calibration future improvements" We have been collectively unsuccessfully so far in stimulating the birth of a stable Background Working Group. Conditions do not look favourable for this happening at the next IACHEC meeting. However, it would be interesting to have review presentations by all projects on how the instrumental background issues have been/are being dealt with. CG will enquire if there is interest among the members of the CCD Working Group to hold a special session on background in the framework of the WG meeting at the 9th IACHEC. The Special Session on calibration above 10 keV at the 8th IACHEC initiated several new cross-calibration projects, many of them with direct involvement of the NuSTAR Team. However, there is no compelling motivation for another special session on this topic. The status of these projects can be discussed during the non-thermal SNR and effective area WGs. We should try again to get colleagues from the Fermi/LAT at the 9th IACHEC meeting. Potential further "external speakers" to be contacted: - Fermi/LAT: HM - Goddard X-ray optics groups: HM, and SS - NIST: HM - G.Schellenberger (HIFLUGCS): JN - N.J.Westergaard (NuSTAR/clusters): JN 3. IACHEC-related presentations ------------------------------- In the last couple of months, several presentations on the IACHEC and his activities have been given: - A presentation on the IACHEC structure and scope at the 1st COSPAR Symposium (Bangkok, 11 November 2013) during a session on future space missions - A presentation focused on high-energy calibration at the INTEGRAL User's Group meeting - A presentation on the IACHEC at the 1st Astro-H software and calibration strategy meeting (JAXA, 20 November 2013) - A presentation on cross-calibration at the Synergy Conference 2013 on "Accreting Relativistic Objects and their Environment" (Prague, 27 November 2013) These presentations will be posted in a specific section of the "Paper" IACHEC web page (http://web.mit.edu/iachec/papers/index.html). JN will contribute with his lectures on galaxy clusters and high-energy calibration. Further contributions, and recycling!, are encouraged. HM will attend a Workshop for prospective Astrosat operation scientists in India in January 2014. He will include material on the IACHEC in his lectures. 4. Next meeting --------------- The next meeting shall be primarily devoted to: - a review of the invited speaker status, to optimally fit them in the meeting program - the usual review of the status of WG activities, and their goals for the 9th IACHEC meeting MG will circulate a Doodle for the time-frame between mid-January and mid-February.