Notes of the 25th teleconference of the IACHEC Working Group Chairs NuSTAR telephone line 20 September 2016 Participants: K.Forster (KF), C.Grant (CG), M.Guainazzi (MG), V.Kashyap (VK), E.Miller (EM), H.Marshall (HM), L.Natalucci (LN), J.Nevalainen (JN), P.Plucinsky (PP), M.Tsujimoto (MT) Apologies: Y.Terada (YT) - we gave him the wrong information on the meeting, MT/MG apologize for the mistake 1. 12th IACHEC meeting logistics -------------------------------- Dates an venue of the meeting have been chosen. A first short announcement was circulated to the IACHEC mailing list, and the web page of the meeting has been set-up (http://web.mit.edu/iachec/meetings/index.html). Thanks to sponsorship, advance booking deposit has been paid securing 35 rooms for accommodation. The venue should be able to host at least 50 participants, and probably many more (KF will check the upper limit). The participant registration fee will be worked out soon. It will include 3 meals per day, dinner on Sunday and breakfast lunch on Thursday. Minor pending items will be sorted out during a visit to the site by the end of this month. The meeting web page will be updated once the registration fee is known, and the registration time-line is set-up. Tentatively, registration will be opened around mid-December, with a registration deadline one month before the meeting. The LAX airport is a ~3 hours drive from the meeting venue. This implies that some participants may consider staying at the meeting venue an additional night if they cannot catch an evening flight (although there is no recollection of this happening during the 2nd IACHEC meeting). KF will check if this would be possible, otherwise participants will be warned accordingly. Alternatively, participants can be advised to fly to/from ONT, just a ~1 drive from the venue. 2. 12th IACHEC scientific program --------------------------------- The meeting will have the usual 3.5 days structure. As far as the "special sessions" are concerned: - it has been agreed to have a special session on the ground-based calibration and in-flight performance of the Hitomi scientific payload (instruments and telescopes), with particular focus on the micro-calorimeter. MT and YT coordinate the definition of the scientific program - it has been agreed to have a special session on the cross-calibration status and the "concordance project". JN and VK will coordinate the definition of the scientific program - MG will inquiry with the HXMT team on their launch schedule, and propose an appropriate schedule for the HXMT calibration talk(s) - calibration scientists of the X-ray polarimetric missions under consideration by ESA and NASA will be contacted to solicit their participation to the 12th IACHEC: HM/IXPE, MG/PRAXIS and XIPE. A special session on X-ray polarimetry will be considered for the 13th IACHEC if (as we warmly hope!) one or more of these missions are selected - LN will propose possible speakers among the Fermi and INTEGRAL Teams on the search for high-energy electromagnetic counterparts of GW events Reports on these activities are expected at the next teleconference. 3. Funding ---------- Another attempt will be made at finding funds to help colleagues from China and/or India to attend the 12th IACHEC meeting: - MG will make a formal request to the COSPAR Executive Director (suggestion by M.Mendez) - MG will ask R.Petre if additional NASA funding would be available for this purpose - VK has investigated possible sources of funding via the AAS or Indo-US collaborations. None of them seems particularly promising, at least in the short term 4. Next teleconference ---------------------- The next teleconference will be held between the second half of October and the first half of November - a Doodle will be circulated.