16th IACHEC meeting, 12 - 16 May 2024
Meeting
The 16th IACHEC workshop will be held at the Parador de LA Granja in Spain (https://paradores.es/en/parador-de-la-granja), which is about 1 hours drive from Madrid.
The meeting will run over 3.5 days, starting Monday the 13th and ending on Thursday 16th at noon. Dinner will be available on Sunday the 12th. The meeting consists of general sessions, which are plenaries, and working group sessions which are held in parallel.
Remote Attendance
Remote attendance will be offered at no cost, but on a best effort only: the meeting will not be held up due to any technical issues with remote connections.
Transportation
By plane: Fly to Madrid, the airport is called Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (but there is only on in Madrid).
By car: About 1h15min drive from Madrid airport
Pre-booked Taxi: a group taxi can be pre-booked from the airport or somewhere in Madrid, Autos Noroeste is the company commonly used by ESA and deals with inquiries also in English via https://www.autosnoroeste.es/en/contact/ or mail to info@autosnoroeste.es .
Getting from Madrid airport to Segovia by public transport
A lot of useful information is compiled on this Madrid Travelling page.
Train connections: Trains from Madrid to Segovia leave at the northern station Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor (mostly just called Chamartín). This station can be reached by a local Cercanía train from airport terminal T4, or by metro from Terminal T2. Note that T4 is a few km away from the contiguous block of T1-T2-T3, but there is a free circular bus line connecting the terminals, which runs rather frequently.
From Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor to Segovia Guiomar, the reasonable connections are with Spanish express trains (Avant or Alvia in this case). For these trains you must pre-book a ticket and show it in order to be even let on board. Tickets can be obtained from renfe.com but also, e.g., via trainline. Some convenient train times are already fully booked on the weekend so one should not wait too long for this. Depending on the ticket, the ride with the Cercania trains may be included, but Metro or bus lines are a completely separate entity.
The express trains take half an hour from Madrid and go to Segovia Guiomar, a train station several km outside Segovia downtown.
Pick-up at Segovia Guiomar: Some of the LOC-omotors would be able to pick up people at this station on Sunday afternoon, e.g., for the trains:
Leaving Madrid 3:40pm, arriving in Segovia at 4:07pm, train Avant 8359. Book via Renfe.com, tickets starting at 13.90 EUR
Leaving Madrid 5:00pm, arriving in Segovia at 5:27pm, train Avant 8179. Book via Renfe.com, tickets starting at 13.90 EUR
Leaving Madrid 5:38pm, arriving in Segovia at 6:05pm, train Alvia 4267. Book via Renfe.com, tickets starting at 30.85 EUR
TAXI from Segovia Guiomar: The local taxi company, Radio Taxi Segovia, also provides service from/to Segovia Guiomar, but we have no experience with them and one should not assume taxi drivers speaking English. Apparently, there is also not always a taxi waiting. A trip to La Granja would probably be ~25 Euro.
Bus connections: A possibly interesting alternative and more scenic is to take a bus from Intercambiador de Moncloa (IMPORTANT: the bus terminal is underground) in Madrid to Segovia. Buses run at least every hour This is very cheap (a few Euros) and possibly more scenic but takes more than an hour to get to Segovia. The company is called Avanza.
Parking at hotel:The Parador has its own car park, which is an open space with an entrance and exit barrier, which attendees can use on arrival by simply calling the intercom and the reception staff will raise the barrier. The capacity of the car park is around 30 vehicles, and spaces are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
In case the hotel is full, there is a free public car park at the back of the hotel where the participants can also park.
MAP OF PARKING
Program
Monday 13 May
Mission Updates | Chair: Herman Marshall | |
|---|---|---|
| ——————- | ||
| 9:10 – 9:20 | Welcome | Kristin Madsen |
| ——————- | ||
| 9:20 – 9:40 | NuSTAR | Karl Forster |
| 9:40 – 10:00 | Swift | Andy Beardmore |
| 9:40 – 10:00 | Nicer | Craig Markwardt |
| 10:00 – 10:20 | IXPE | Stefano Silvestri |
| 10:20 – 10:40 | INTEGRAL | Erik Kuulkers |
| ——————- | ||
| 11:00 – 11:50 | Break | |
| ——————- | ||
| 11:50 – 12:10 | Insight-HXMT | Xiaobo Li |
| 12:10 – 12:30 | XMM-Newton | Michael Smith |
| 12:30 – 12:50 | Chandra | Akos Bogdan |
| 12:50 – 13:10 | Status of the commissioning of Einstein Probe | Chen Zhang |
| 13:10 – 13:30 | Some Preliminary Results of EP-FXT in-orbit Calibration | Chengkui Li |
| ——————- | ||
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Lunch | |
| ——————- | ||
Special Session: Einstein Probe | Chair: Vadim Burwitz | |
| 15:00 – 15:20 | An overview of EP-FXT | Yong Chen |
| 15:20 – 15:40 | Ground calibration of FXT optics in IHEP | Yusa Wang/Yuxuan Zhu |
| 15:40 – 16:00 | Calibration of FXT timing mode | Xiaofan Zhao |
| 16:00 – 16:20 | The in-flight background of EP/FXT | Juan Zhang |
| 16:20 – 16:40 | On-ground calibration of the Wide-field X-ray telescope (WXT) on board Einstein Probe | Huaqing Cheng |
| 16:40 – 17:00 | In-flight calibration of the Wide-field X-ray Telescope on board Einstein Probe | Heyang Liu |
| ——————- | ||
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Break | |
| ——————- | ||
| 18:00 – 19:30 | Detectors and Background | Room 1 |
| The SMILE-SXI tools to model and tackle the radiation damage effects | Claudio Pagani | |
| ACIS Calibration with Cas A | Nick Durham | |
| XMM-Newton EPIC-pn: update to the long-term CTI | Ivan Valtchanov | |
| Developing new technique to handle pileup | Vinay Kayshap | |
| 18:00 – 19:30 | Non-thermal SNR | Room 2 |
| Soft Gamma-ray Observations of the Crab with INTEGRAL/IBIS-PICsIT | James Rodi | |
Tuesday 14 May
Working Group |
||
|---|---|---|
| 9:30 – 10:30 | Calibration Statistics | Room 1 |
| Concordance Update with XMM/Chandra Blazars | Herman Marshall | |
| Statistics for use in X-ray Polarimetry | Herman Marshall | |
| 10:30 – 11:00 | High Resoltion | Room 1 |
| HR1099 line fluxes and locations Chandra/XRISM | Vinay Kashyap/Eric Miller | |
| ——————- | ||
| 11:00 – 11:50 | Break | |
| ——————- | ||
General Session #1 |
Chair: Karl Forster |
|
| 11:50 – 12:10 | Introduction to the EP Science Center and science operations of Einstein Probe | Congying Bao |
| 12:10 – 12:30 | Stacking sources to study the eROSITA in-flight calibration | Jeremy Sanders |
| 12:30 – 12:50 | Galaxy Cluster-based Evidence from NuSTAR for Miscalibration in the Hard Bands of XMM-Newton and Chandra? | Daniel Wik |
| 12:50 – 13:10 | The 3-body problem: calibrating X-ray observations of a triple-star system | Surangkhana Rukdee |
| 13:10 – 13:30 | XMM-Newton EPIC-pn single reflections from Sco X-1 | Michael Freyberg |
| ——————- | ||
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Lunch | |
| ——————- | ||
Special Session: XRISM |
Chair: Catherine Grant |
|
| 15:00 – 15:15 | XRISM mission status | Yoshiaki Kanemaru |
| 15:15 – 15:30 | Initial operations and calibration procedure of XRISM/Xtend | Hiromasa Suzuki |
| 15:30 – 15:50 | Planning and implementing XRISM in-flight calibration | Eric Miller |
| 15:50 – 16:10 | Optimization of X-ray event screening using ground and in-orbit data for the Resolve instrument onboard the XRISM satellite | Yuto Mochizuki |
| 16:10 – 16:30 | On-orbit calibration of XRISM/Xtend | Tomokage Yoneyama |
| 16:30 – 16:45 | Overview of XRISM/Xtend Transient Search | Marina Yoshimoto |
| 16:45 – 17:00 | Ground and In-orbit Verifications of the XRISM Timing System | Yukikatsu Terada |
| ——————- | ||
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Break | |
| ——————- | ||
| 18:00 – 19:30 | Isolated NS and WD | Room 2 |
| Overview of the iNS and WD working group calibration efforts | Vadim Burwitz | |
| 18:00 – 19:30 | Coordinated Observations | Room 1 |
| A NICER look at X-ray cross-calibration using 3C 273 | Jeremy Hare | |
| First results on XRISM effective area cross-calibration | Eric Miller/Takayuki Hayashi | |
| ACROSS: Efficient multi-mission coordination | Brian Humensky |
Wednesday 15 May
Working Group | ||
|---|---|---|
| 9:30 – 11:00 | Thermal SNR | Room 1 |
| 9:30 – 10:00 | Cas A | |
| What to expect from the XRISM observations of N132D and Cas A | Paul Plucinsky | |
| The development and use of a standard model of Cas A for ACIS calibration | Nick Durham | |
| Swift, XMM, RXTE, NuStar, & NICER fits to Cas A | Craig Markwardt | |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | E0102 | |
| E0102 observations with Xtend | Tomokage Yoneyama | |
| Using E0102 to improve the eROSITA ARFs and RMFs and XMM RMFs | Konrad Dennerl | |
| Monitoring SN1987A with XMM and eROSITA | Konrad Dennerl | |
| 10:30 – 11:00 | N123D | |
| An updated model for the Fe-K region in N132D from XMM data | Adam Foster | |
| An update on the RGS analysis of N132D | Martin Stuhlinger | |
| 9:30 – 11:00 | Contamination | Room 2 |
| Evolution of the contamination layer on the Chandra ACIS optical blocking filter | Akos Bogdan | |
| ——————- | ||
| 11:00 – 11:50 | Break | |
| ——————- | ||
General Session #2 | Chair: Eric Miller | |
| 11:50 – 12:10 | The VERT-X calibration facility | Alberto Moretti |
| 12:10 – 12:30 | The cross-calibration between XMM-Newton & NuSTAR in timing mode | Gabriele Matzeu |
| 12:30 – 12:50 | A large scale study of the background of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) telescope | Stefano Silverstri |
| 12:50 – 13:10 | Evaluation of the in-orbit pointing accuracy of XRISM | Yoshiaki Kanemaru |
| 13:10 – 13:30 | XRISM on-orbit PSF and optical axis calibration | Takayuki Hayashi |
| ——————- | ||
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Lunch | |
| ——————- | ||
General Session #3 | Chair: Paul Plucinsky | |
| 15:00 – 15:20 | SMILE Soft X-ray Imager Prelaunch Testing | Andrew Beardmore |
| 15:20 – 15:40 | Calibration plan of GRM onboad SVOM | Shijie Zheng |
| 15:40 – 16:00 | RMFs and ARFs for eROSITA and XMM/EPIC-pn | Konrad Dennerl |
| 16:00 – 16:20 | The 100 m X-ray Test Facility in IHEP and Calibration Plans for the eXTP | Yusa Wang |
| 16:20 – 16:40 | NinjaSat: A 6U CubeSat observatory for bright X-ray sources | Toru Tamagawa |
| 16:40 – 17:00 | Timing calibration of the CubeSat X-ray observatory NinjaSat | Naoyuki Ota |
| ——————- | ||
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Break | |
| ——————- | ||
| 18:00 – 19:30 | Clusters of galaxies | Room 1 |
| 18:00 – 19:30 | Timing | Room 2 |
| Pulsar Cross-calibration | Matteo Bachetti | |
| Challenges to Keep the Timing Accuracy of XRISM Timing System in GPS Failure Mode | Megumi Shidatsu |
Thursday 16 May
Working Group Summaries | Chair: | |
|---|---|---|
| Chair : | ||
| 9:30 – 9:15 | Detectors and Background | Catherine Grant |
| 9:30 – 9:45 | Timing | Yukikatsu Terada |
| 9:45 – 10:00 | Clusters of Galaxies | Eric Miller |
| 10:00 – 10:15 | Calibration Statistics | Vinay Kashyap |
| 10:15 – 10:30 | Thermal SNR | Paul Plucinsky |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Contamination | Herman Marshal |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | WD & Isolated NS | Vadim Burwitz |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | Non-thermal SNR | Kristin Madsen |
| ——————- | ||
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Break | |
| ——————- | ||
| 12:00 – 12:15 | Coordinated Observations | Karl Forster |
| 12:15 – 13:00 | Future of IACHEC | Kristin Madsen |
| 13:00 – 13:15 | Closing Remarks | Kristin Madsen |
| ——————- | ||
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Lunch | |
| ——————- |
Hotel Reservations
To maximize interactions between participants during the workshop, we recommend staying at Parador de la Granja where the workshop is hosted. It is the responsibility of the participants to make their own reservations at Parador de la Granja. For reservations, please download the form linked below and send it to:
lagranja@parador.es
Subject line: 16th IACHEC meeting
Phone: (+34) 921010750
The hotel reservation deadline is April 12th. After this date the hotel can’t guarantee the room rate or the availability of rooms. The rooms will be charged to the provided credit card after April 12th.
Meals
Breakfast is included in the room rate, and lunch and dinner are provided during the meeting days with the exception of Tuesday 14th, when a special dinner will be arranged outside of the hotel. Details on the dinner will be provided closer to the meeting and will be charged in addition.
Cancellation
The hotel reservation can be cancelled up until April 12th. After this date, cancellation is only possible in special circumstances to be negotiated with the hotel.
Contact
For questions regarding the meeting program please email: meetings@iachec.org.
For questions regarding the hotel reservations, please conact Parador de la Granja.
Local Organizing Committee
Peter Kretschmar, ESAC/ESA, Felix Fürst, ESAC/ESA
Sponsors
