AGN Physics with the SDSS Sunday, July 27th to Wednesday, July 30th 2003 Princeton University Princeton, NJ

Main Page Registration Accommodations Dining Participants Invited Speakers Program Travel Acknowledgements SDSS Home Page SDSS Primer Summary of SDSS AGN Publications Proceedings

Introduction

The AGN community is in the midst of a flood of high-quality data spanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from the FIRST survey in the radio, Chandra and XMM-Newton in X-rays, 2dF in the optical, 2MASS and SIRTF in the infra-red, and no lack of data from 8m class telescopes. Adding to this is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The SDSS will yield spectra of resolution R~2000 covering 3800-9200 Angstroms for ~100,000 quasars (including over 30,000 already), and photometry accurate to a few percent for an order of magnitude more AGN. This wealth of new data will lead to significant advances in our understanding of the physics of active galactic nuclei (AGN). In that vein, we are organizing a small meeting of AGN scientists from the SDSS and the general community to discuss 1) how the SDSS data can contribute to our understanding of AGN physics and 2) what recent results in AGN research mean for the interpretation of AGN data from the SDSS.

Meeting Format/Philosophy

The meeting will consist of ~7 long review talks (30 min + 10 min discussion) on broad topics, ~12 shorter review talks (15 min + 5 min discussion) on more focused topics, ~30-40 contributed talks (15 min + 5 min discussion) and ~100 posters. All invitees will be allowed to present either a poster or give a contributed talk. Contributed talks will be selected on the basis of abstracts submitted to the SOC. Although we are calling this "AGN Physics with the SDSS", by no means is it required that the talks/posters be based upon SDSS data or even mention the SDSS in any way. At the same time, we ask attendees to focus on how UV/optical/near-IR wavelength surveys like the SDSS might contribute to their work, and how an improved understanding of AGN from their work can help in interpreting results from the SDSS. Also, to provide some focus for the meeting, we are restricting presentations to those that discuss AGN physics as opposed to using AGN as tools for other science (e.g., lensing, intergalactic medium, etc.).

Invited Speakers

Long Review Talks Todd Boroson (NOAO) -- "Principal Component Analysis of QSO Properties" Niel Brandt (Penn State) -- "X-raying Active Galaxies Found (and Missed?) by the SDSS" Martin Elvis (CfA) -- "Toward a 'Low' Theory for Quasar Atmospheres" Gary Ferland (Kentucky) -- Line Physics Fred Hamann (Florida) -- "The Varied Nature of Intrinsic Absorbers in AGNs" Belinda Wilkes (CfA) -- "Spectral Energy Distributions" Meg Urry (Yale) -- "AGN Unification" Short Review Talks Omer Blaes (UCSB) -- Accretion Disks Scott Croom (AAO) -- Clustering Roc Cutri (IPAC) -- Infra-red Mike Eracleous (Penn State) -- "Active Galaxies With Double-Peaked Emission Lines" Xiaohui Fan (Arizona) -- High Redshift Quasars David Helfand (Columbia) -- "Radio Emission from Quasars: A Switch or a Rheostat?" Ari Laor (Technion) -- "What is the BLR?" Daniel Proga (Colorado) -- "Mass Outflows from Accretion Disks: Old and New Challenges" Gary Schmidt (Arizona) -- "QSO Polarization in the Era of Deep Surveys and Large Telescopes" Don Schneider (Penn State) -- Luminosity Function Marianne Vestergaard (OSU) -- "Black Hole Mass Measurements" Eliot Quataert (Berkeley) -- "Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows"

Location

The meeting will be held on the campus of Princeton University . Talks will be held in Room A02 of McDonnell Laboratory . Posters will be in the foyer outside of Room A02, McDonnell Laboratory. McDonnell is just south of Fine Tower and is only a short walk from the Astrophysics Department in Peyton Hall. For a detailed map of the relevant areas of campus, see the following map.

Participants

The meeting will be limited to 120 participants. This restriction is partially because of physical size constraints and partially becuase of our desire for the meeting to have the feel of a workshop rather than a conference. Participation is limited to those that are active in AGN research and will primarily be by invitation, but we have reserved some slots for at-large applications. The organizers reserve the right to select participants based on the suitability of their proposed contributions to the overall scientific agenda of the meeting

Sponsors

Financial and other assistance for the meeting are graciously being provided by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The National Science Foundation (Grant No. 0330649) The Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University Princeton University The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Organizing Committees

Scientific Bob Becker (UC Davis/IGPP), Todd Boroson (NOAO), Niel Brandt (Penn State), Suzy Collin (Observatoire de Paris-Meudon), Roc Cutri (IPAC), Martin Elvis (CfA), Pat Hall (Princeton/PUC), Arieh Königl (Chicago), Julian Krolik (JHU), Brad Peterson (OSU), Gordon Richards (Princeton), Don Schneider (Penn State), Joe Shields (Ohio), Steph Snedden (APO), Belinda Wilkes (SAO), Bev Wills (Texas) Local Susan Dawson, Pat Hall, Lei Hao, Fiona Hoyle, Zeljko Ivezic, Jill Knapp, Mindy Lipman, Gordon Richards, Iskra Strateva, Michael Strauss