IAU WG on Ap & Related Stars – News
June 29, 2012
Working Group meeting at the IAU General Assembly in Beijing
Two slots have been reserved for a meeting of the IAU Working Group (WG) on Ap & Related Stars at the XXVIIIth IAU General Assembly in Beijing: on Thursday, August 23 from 14:00 to 15:30 and from 16:00 to 18:00. These slots should not overlap with slots assigned to meetings of Divisions, Commissions or other WG of interest to the majority of the members of our WG.
The first part of the meeting will be devoted to WG business matters, including:
- Report on the 2009-2012 triennium
- Presentation of the Organizing Committee of the WG for the 2012-2015 triennium (see below)
- Impact of the IAU Division restructuring on the WG on Ap & Related Stars (see below)
- Update on the international conference “Putting A-Stars into Context” (see below)
- Other announcements
- Any other business
Should you wish to add any item to the agenda of the business meeting, please contact the WG Chairman, Gautier Mathys (gmathys@eso.org).
The second part of the meeting will be devoted to scientific presentations. Preference will be given to fairly informal presentations, on recent, novel, important results. Younger members of the Ap stars community are particularly encouraged to present their work. If you wish to give such a presentation, or to propose a speaker, please contact Gautier Mathys (gmathys@eso.org) before July 15.
Elections of the Organizing Committee of the WG for the 2012-2015 triennium
The IAU General Assembly marks the end of the 2009-2012 triennium. A new Organizing Committee (OC) will take over the running of the WG on Ap & Related Stars for the 2012-2015 triennium. As per the rules of the WG, the OC counts 12 members, who serve for three terms of 3 years. They are automatically re-appointed for their second and third terms unless they are not willing to continue to serve. Thus, for the 2012-2015 triennium, about 1/3 of the OC will have to be replaced (the exact number depends on the willingness of the current re-eligible members to serve for a second or third term – not all have confirmed yet). New members of the OC must be elected by the WG members. At this stage, we are inviting candidates for this election. Both spontaneous applications from interested people and nominations from other members of the WG are welcome. If you are interested in being a candidate for this election, or if you want to nominate a candidate, please contact Gautier Mathys (gmathys@eso.org) before July 15. Note that candidates nominated by another WG member will have to confirm their willingness to run for the election.
IAU Division restructuring and its impact on the WG
The IAU Division restructuring project is described in Information Bulletin 109. As a reminder, the WG on Ap & Related Stars is an Inter-Division WG under Divisions IV (Stars) and V (Variable stars). According to current plans, these two Divisions will be merged. While this is in principle compatible with the continuation of our WG as a WG of the new resulting Division (Stars and Stellar Physics), the IAU appears keen to take advantage of the restructuring to revise the Commissions and WG definitions. In this context, our WG would fit very well with the new definition of “Topical Commissions” (one of two flavours of Commissions, the other being “Functional”), which “focus and provide expertise on medium-term, evolving issues, of importance both for the specialists and for the community at large”. Of particular relevance is the fact that Commissions are long-lived (though not indefinite), while WGs are meant to be short-lived. Already, the WG on Massive Stars is planning to become a Commission. The WG OC has been considering the situation, and it believes that it would be beneficial for our WG to try to convert to a Commission. This should be further discussed during the Beijing General Assembly.
International conference: “Putting A-Stars into Context: Evolution, Environment and Related Stars”
Towards the end of 2011, the OC of the WG decided to submit an application to the IAU for an IAU Symposium to be held in 2013. A SOC was constituted, comprising members of the WG OC and a number of other members bringing complementary expertise. A proposal was prepared and submitted to the IAU, for a meeting entitled “Putting A-Stars into Context: Evolution, Environment and Related Stars”. Unfortunately, this proposal was not among those that were selected as IAU Symposia for 2013. After careful consideration of the situation, the SOC and the LOC decided to go ahead with the organization of the meeting outside the IAU context.
Accordingly, all members of the IAU WG on Ap & Related Stars and all other interested members of the astronomical community are warmly invited to the International Conference on “Putting A-Stars into Context: Evolution, Environment and Related Stars” that will take place in Moscow (Russia) from Monday, June 3, to Friday, June 7, 2013.
A detailed first announcement and the conference web site are currently in preparation, and should be published around mid-July. Please already reserve the meeting dates on your calendar. The organizers hope to see as many of you as possible attending the conference next year.
For the Organizing Committee of the IAU WG on Ap & Related Stars,
Gautier Mathys, Chairman