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   Massimo Turatto & William Shea

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1604 – 2004. Supernovae as Cosmological Lighthouses

16-19 June 2004, Padua, Italy

Web site: http://web.pd.astro.it/sn1604

Contact e-mail of the LOC: sn1604@pd.astro.it

On October 9 of 1604 a New Star as bright and as red as Mars created a stir throughout Europe. At Padua the new star was observed by Galileo while in Prague Kepler made careful observations and the Supernova now carries his name. Galileo gave 3 public lectures that were attended by a large audience in which he almost certainly explained the notion of parallax with the help of familiar examples and then used the concept to demonstrate that the new star was much further than the moon. This had important astronomical consequences since it showed that change occurred in the sky, contrary to the theories of Aristotle and his followers.
Since then Supernovae, which are nowadays believed to be the end-point in the evolution of massive stars and stars of low mass in close binary systems, play a key role in the evolution and development of astrophysics. Not only are they the observational moorings to which stellar evolutionary models must dock, but on account of their extraordinary luminosity, Supernovae constitute a kind of cosmological lighthouse that is essential to draw a map of the Universe. The latest concepts of an accelerating Universe and recent models of the Gamma Ray Bursts are based mainly on observations of the Supernovae.
A four-day international meeting is being organised by the University and the Observatory of Padua to commemorate the fourth centennial of the appearance of the New Star of 1604 but also to explore recent developments. The first day of the meeting will be devoted to the history of Supernovae and next three will analyse the important changes that have taken place over the last decade in their observation and their theoretical interpretation. New issues will be raised and proposals for future research will be outlined and discussed.

Review, invited and contributed talks and posters are foreseen. The proceedings of the Conference will be published. Attendance will be limited to 250 participants by the capacity of the venue and room availabity in that period of the year.

The venue is the Aula Magna of the University of Padua in the historical center of the town. The University of Padua is one of the oldest University of the world (dating back to 1222 a.D.) and has been for centuries the University of the Republic of Venice (located 30 km eastward).

Scientific Organizing Committee: F.Bertola (Padua), A.Filippenko (Berkeley), W.Hillebrandt (Munich), R.Kirshner (Harvard), K.Nomoto (Tokyo), W.Shea (co-chair, Padua), M.Turatto (co-chair, Padua)

Local Organizing Committee: S. Benetti (chair), N. Elias De La Rosa.

Hotel accommodation at walking distance can be arranged for all participants who register on time. Details will be provided in the Second Announcement.

The registration fee will cover many local expenses (coffee, banquet, etc.) and a copy of the Conference Proceedings. Partial support for young researchers will be contingent on final funding available