THE E-ELT DESIGN REFERENCE MISSION

DRM & DRSP Workshop

26 – 28 May 2009
ESO Garching

 

First Announcement

11 Dec 2008

The European ELT is now in the middle of its detailed design phase. In order to aid technical design choices and to ensure that the telescope meets the scientific needs of the community as much as possible, the E-ELT Design Reference Mission (DRM) is being developed. The DRM consists of a set of observing proposals generated from the science case, and corresponding simulated data. The simulation work is now in full swing and the aim of this workshop is to bring together members of the community, various instrument study teams, members of the E-ELT Science Working Group and the E-ELT Science Office at ESO to present and to discuss the results from the simulations.

The DRM is based on the following "prominent science cases" selected by the Science Working Group, and the discussion will focus on these topics:

• Planets & Stars
  • From giant to terrestrial exoplanets: detection, characterization and evolution
  • Circumstellar disks
  • Young clusters and the Initial Mass Function
• Stars & Galaxies
  • Imaging and spectroscopy of resolved stellar populations in galaxies
  • Black holes and AGN
• Galaxies & Cosmology
  • The physics of high redshift galaxies
  • First light - the highest redshift galaxies
  • Is the low-density intergalactic medium metal enriched?
  • A dynamical measurement of the expansion history of the Universe

In addition to the DRM, the E-ELT Science Office has recently launched the Design Reference Science Plan (DRSP). In contrast to the DRM, which focusses on a few select science cases, the DRSP aims to explore the full range of science cases for which the E-ELT will be used. To this end future E-ELT users are requested to submit their science cases to the DRSP. At the workshop the E-ELT Science Office will present the DRSP in detail.

For more information on the DRM and DRSP please see http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/science/.

The three-day DRM & DRSP workshop will be open to the community and we encourage contributed talks concerning simulations of E-ELT performance. The aim is to provide all stakeholders with a platform for open exchange and critical assessment of the simulation results, and we plan to reserve plenty of time for discussions.

We are contacting you because you have previously expressed interest in this activity and/or you are involved in an E-ELT instrument study. If you are interested in attending this workshop then please complete the registration form at http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/science/drm/workshop09/ before 16 February 2009. There is no registration fee. Please circulate this to others who may be interested.

This is the second DRM workshop being held as part of the EC FP7 "ELT Preparatory Phase" program. Travel funding is available for participants from within Europe. If you wish to apply for travel support please complete the relevant section of the registration form.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Isobel Hook
Joe Liske
Markus Kissler-Patig

P.S.: Please also note that the DRM & DRSP workshop will be immediately followed by another small, one-day workshop on "Imaging at the E-ELT" on 29 May 2009, organized by the FP7 network on wide-field imaging at the E-ELT. The aim is to bring together members of the community currently working on wide field imagers on 6-8 meter class telescopes and on topics related to imaging at the ELT. If you are interested in this please contact Magda Arnaboldi (marnabol@eso.org) for further information.