The 4th INTEGRAL (International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) workshop `Exploring the Gamma-ray Universe' will take place from 4 - 8  September  2000 in Alicante, Spain.

The workshop is being jointly sponsored by ESA, NASA, INTA, CDTI, CICYT, Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, The Generalitat Valenciana and some of the main european aerospace companies.

This circular calls for contributed oral and poster papers to be presented at the workshop.

Registration and hotel accommodation forms, instructions for authors and kits for the preparation of abstracts (including examples) will be available via the WWW pages of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC):
http://www.integral.ua.es

The ESA INTEGRAL pages on the WWW will also provide access to the latest workshop information: 
http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Integral/integral.html 

It is intended to make all accepted abstracts and the scientific programme information available on the WWW.

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 15 March 2000.

Scientific Programme 

The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory INTEGRAL is ESA's gamma-ray mission (in collaboration with Russia and NASA) of the long term Space Science Programme `Horizon 2000' scheduled for launch in 2001.

INTEGRAL is dedicated to the fine spectroscopy (2 keV FWHM @ 1.3 MeV) and fine imaging (12' FWHM, arcminute source location) of celestial gamma-ray sources in the energy range 15 keV to 10 MeV with concurrent X-ray (3 - 35 keV) and optical (V, 550 nm) source monitoring. The observatory will be operated for two to possibly five years. The majority of observing time will be given to the scientific user community through a single peer review process.

The main goals of this 4th INTEGRAL workshop `Exploring the Gamma-ray Universe' are to review and discuss (via invited and contributed talks and posters) the status and progress on the following scientific themes which are the basis for science with INTEGRAL:

• Nucleosynthesis (Supernovae, Novae, diffuse emission)
• Cosmic plasmas (ISM, gas, thermal and non-thermal processes including clusters of galaxies, background radiation)
• Gravitational collapse (physics of compact objects, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes)
• Accretion (X-ray binaries, AGN)
• Jet sources (see also the adjoining Third Microquasar Workshop in Granada on Sep 11-13)
• Gamma-ray bursts
• The Galactic Center
• INTEGRAL and other High Energy missions

Contributions are encouraged to discuss INTEGRAL's scientific capabilities within the framework of the scientific themes described above.

This fourth INTEGRAL workshop builds upon the results of the earlier ones held in 1993, 1996, 1998:

1st INTEGRAL workshop `The Multi-Wavelength Approach to Gamma-Ray Astronomy' Les Diablerets, Switzerland, 1993. Proceedings: ApJ Suppl.Ser. Vol. 92, Number 2, pp. 325 - 698 (June 1994).

2nd INTEGRAL workshop `The Transparent Universe' St Malo, France, 1996. Proceedings: ESA SP-382 (March 1997).

3rd INTEGRAL workshop 'The extreme Universe' Taormina, Italy, 1998 Proceedings: Astrophys. Letters & Communications, Gordon & Breach, 1999, in press
 

The final programme will be made available in July 2000 and it will also be accessible on the WWW.

Scientific Advisory Committee 

A. Gimenez (chair), LAEFF Madrid, Spain
T. Courvoisier, ISDC & Geneva Observatory, Switzerland 
N. Gehrels, NASA-GSFC Greenbelt, USA 
S. Grebenev, IKI Moscow, Russia
W. Hermsen, SRON Utrecht, The Netherlands 
F. Lebrun, CE-Saclay, France 
N. Lund, DSRI Copenhagen, Denmark
G. Palumbo, University of Bologna, Italy
J. Paul, CE-Saclay, France 
V. Reglero, Univ Valencia, Spain
V. Schoenfelder, MPE Garching, Germany 
R. Sunyaev, IKI Moscow, Russia
B. Teegarden, NASA-GSFC Greenbelt, USA 
P. Ubertini, IAS-CNR Roma, Italy 
G. Vedrenne, CESR Toulouse, France 
C. Winkler, ESA-ESTEC Noordwijk, The Netherlands 

A. Gimenez (chair Science Advisory Committee), LAEFF Madrid, Spain
V. Reglero (chair Local Organizing Committee), Univ. Valencia, Spain
C. Winkler, ESA-ESTEC, The Netherlands 

V. Reglero (chair), Univ. Valencia, Spain
A. Berna, Univ. Alicante, Spain
G. Bernabeu, Univ. Alicante, Spain
E. Enjuto, Univ. Valencia, Spain
A. Gimenez, LAEFF, Madrid, Spain
M. Mas, LAEFF, Madrid, Spain
F. Sanchez, IFIC, Valencia, Spain
J. Suso, Univ. Valencia, Spain
J. Torrejon, Univ. Alicante, Spain
J. Torres, INTA, Madrid, Spain
S.Martínez, Univ. Valencia, Spain

The 4th INTEGRAL workshop will take place in the "Aula Cultural de la Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo (CAM)", Avenida Dr. Gadea 1, Alicante, Spain. The CAM is located in the city centre, within walking distance (5 min) from hotels, restaurants and the beach.

Alicante is located on the Spanish mediterranean cost, 515 km south of Barcelona, 420 km from Madrid and 170 km from Valencia. Alicante, inhabiting 300.000 people, is the capital of the province of Alicante and it is one of the main tourist cities along the Mediterranean cost.

Several cultural attractions include the Capa Collection of sculpture, the museum of the 20th century art "La Asegurada" (with works of Dali, Miro, Picasso and others), the archeological museum, the 16th century Santa Barbara Castle, and antiques from the Roman Empire.

Typical temperatures during September are 25-30 deg C.

Travel Information

• By plane: 

• By train: 

• By car: 

The Alicante city centre is short of free parking space, however there exists sufficient space of paid parking lots (~ 15 US$ per day). Several hotels do provide parking for their guests.

Social Events

Several social events are planned including a welcome cocktail, a workshop dinner in the Santa Barbara castle overlooking Alicante and the Mediterranean Coast and an excursion to the island of Tabarca located 6 miles away from the Alicante harbour. Further information will be provided in the second circular. 

The workshop fee for registered participants includes those social events. Additional tickets for reception and dinner can be obtained for accompanying persons. This must be indicated on the registration form.

Registration 


Registration forms can be obtained from the WWW site at the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) http://www.integral.ua.es .Participants are requested to complete the registration form and to return it to the address given on the form.

The registration deadline (workshop and hotels) is 01 May 2000.

The workshop fee is 200 Euro per person (apx 210 US$). The fee includes the abstract book, a copy of the workshop proceedings and social events.

The fee for late registration (after 01 May 2000) will be 220 Euro (apx 230 US$).

The workshop fee should be paid preferably by charging your credit card. Bank transfer to the workshop bank account is also possible (see registration form for further details). Please specify the method and date of payment on your registration form.

Registration forms submitted prior to the workshop AND using credit card payments only, signed by the participant, need to be faxed or (express-) mailed, as the submission of the form via e-mail or WWW is not possible in that case.

Payment of the fee in Alicante can be done either in cash or via credit card.

A refund of the workshop registration fee is possible with a deduction of 10% and under the condition that the cancellation has been received in writing by the Local Organising Committee no later than 15 August 2000. No refunds are possible for cancellations received after that date.

Hotel Accommodation


A list of hotels with a range of prices can be found.

It is strongly recommended that participants use the hotel accommodation form. Hotel reservations will be handled locally by the University of Alicante International Relations Centre which must receive this accommodation form.

Please note that rooms will be reserved, as far as  possible according to your preference, on a first come first served basis. Hotel accommodation forms must reach the organisers no later than the date indicated on the form in order to guarantee accommodation. Please take note of the cancellation policy for hotel reservations on that form.

The deadline for hotel registration is 01 May 2000.

Abstracts

Abstracts of papers relevant to the scientific Programme outlined above shall be submitted via e-Mail to the LOC (loc@castor.daa.uv.es). Participants are urged to make use of Word (any version) or .txt formats.Latex template is also available: Integral_Abstract_Template.tex and Integral_Abstract_Template.sty

   Word or .txt template

   TITLE:
   AUTHOR1, AUTHOR2, ...
   INSTITUTE ADDRESS 1
   INSTITUTE ADDRESS 2

   ABSTRACT:

Notes:  Maximum lenght: 1 page.
We will assume the first author as the single contact point.
Otherwise, please specify.

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 15 March 2000.

Please note that abstract submission by fax is not possible.

Authors for contributed papers should indicate their preference for oral talk or poster. 

Authors will be notified on acceptance and scheduling of their paper. The time allocation will be 15 minutes (including 3 minutes discussion) for contributed talks, and 30 minutes or 45 minutes (including discussion) for invited talks and reviews, respectively. 

The Scientific Advisory Committee will reserve the right to re-allocate an accepted contributed oral paper as poster and vice versa.

The abstracts of the accepted papers will be printed in an abstract book which will be distributed to all participants in Alicante.

Posters

The posters will be displayed at the Conference Centre in the "coffee break" area. Poster boards will be available and the display area is 1m x 1m per poster. A total number of about 100 posters can be displayed simultaneously.

Posters must be displayed by the author(s), and it is essential, that authors make themselves available for discussion at scheduled times. It is the intention (depending on the total number of posters accepted) to display all posters for the entire duration of the workshop. 

Workshop Proceedings

All contributions (reviews, invited, contributed oral and posters) will be refereed via the SAC.

All refereed contributions will be published by ESA as one volume of the ESA-SP series. In addition it is the intention to publish the conference proceedings also on CD-ROM.

Authors are expected to provide the camera-ready manuscript at the time of the workshop in order to facilitate and accelerate the refereeing procedure. 

Further information and instructions to authors for the preparation of camera-ready papers will be provided in the second circular.

To guarantee the publication of any paper (oral contribution or poster), the lead author or one co-author must be present at the workshop.

Travel Support

As for past INTEGRAL workshops, the organisers will make best efforts to provide some financial support to help participants (e.g. young scientists) attending the workshop. Travel support relies solely on very limited funds which are hoped to become available through external sponsors. Grants to support travel and participation may be mainly given to young scientists and scientists from Eastern Europe. European Union, USA, Canada, Japan scientists are requested to apply to their respective funding agencies. The amount of the grant covers the Workshop Registrarion Fee (200 Euros) plus accomodation and meals at Alicante (500 Euros). Authors of papers accepted for the workshop who have requested to the organisers travel support will be informed in due time about feasibility of support.

Calendar of Events

 

Workshop Organisation: 

• Scientific Advisory Committee:

Alvaro Gimenez
LAEFF 
Apartado 50.727
28080 Madrid
Spain
telephone:    +34-91-8131155
fax:              +34-91-8131160
e-mail:   ag@laeff.esa.es

• Local Organising Committee:

Victor Reglero
Instituto de Ciencias de los Materiales
University of Valencia
Edificio de Institutos de Investigación
P.O. Box 2085
E-46071 Valencia
Spain
telephone:   +34-96-3983229
fax:             +34-96-3983261
e-mail:   loc@castor.daa.uv.es

Christoph Winkler 
Astrophysics Division
ESA-ESTEC 
Keplerlaan 1 
2201 AZ Noordwijk 
The Netherlands 
telephone:   +31-71-565-3591 
fax:             +31-71-565-5434
e-mail:   cwinkler@astro.estec.esa.nl

INTEGRAL Workshop WWW page at LOC:
http://www.integral.ua.es