| IAU Symposium 250 on Massive Stars as Cosmic Engines will be hosted by the Institute
for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii.
The Institute
for Astronomy is involved in the development and
management of the observatories at Haleakala and Mauna Kea, one of
the leading astronomical observatories in the world.
The venue of the symposium is the Grand Hyatt Hotel on the beautiful
island of Kauai.
The conference will focus on how massive stars shape the Universe,
from the nearby Universe to high-redshift galaxies and the first
generation of stars. Massive stars form in starbursts, pollute the
interstellar medium (ISM), inject energy and momentum via their stellar winds and core-collapse supernovae (SNe), drive the ISM out of galaxies, polluting
the intergalactic mediium. Direct detection of massive stars (via their UV continua and
spectral lines) and of the products of their nucleosynthesis provides
some of the most stringent constraints on the physical properties of
galaxies at high redshifts, whether identified via their emission at
a variety of wavelengths or by the absorption they produce in quasar
spectra. Within the past few years, a direct connection has been
established between certain core-collapse SNe and Gamma Ray Bursts
(GRBs), supporting the collapsar model in which the GRB results from
the death throes of a rapidly rotating WR star.
The massive star community - historically involved with studies of OB
and Wolf-Rayet stars - has had a rich history of very successful
IAU Symposia:
1971: IAU Symposium 49 in Argentina
1978: IAU Symposium 83 in Canada
1981: IAU Symposium 99 in Mexico
1985: IAU Symposium 116 in Greece
1990: IAU Symposium 143 in Indonesia
1994: IAU Symposium 163 in Italy
1998: IAU Symposium 193 in Mexico
2002: IAU Symposium 212 in Spain
|
