Letters of Intent received in 2022

LoI 2024-2165
Star formation in the era of JWST

Topics

Star formation in our Galaxy (protostars and star forming regions)
Star formation in nearby galaxies
Star formation in the very distant universe

Rationale

We propose a symposium to be held in Palapye, Botswana, as an 'outrigger' to the IAU GA to be held in Cape Town in 2024. The symposium may take place during the GA or added on at the beginning or end, to facilitate attendance. We have discussed this with members of the SAAO involved in the preparation of the IAU GA (especially Prof. Vaisanen, currently director of SAAO) and we have met with a favorable response, as it is intended that the GA will be 'pan-African' rather than simply a South African meeting. There are direct flights from/to Cape Town from Gaborone and excellent transport links to Palapye via the new A1 highway. For those coming to the Palapye symposium first, Gaborone can be reached from Johannesburg and Addis Abeba and we can arrange a taxi driver or bus to head to Palapye for groups. We will organize bus transport from Gaborone airport to the venue in Palapye as well.

The host university will be BIUST: Botswana International University of Science and Technology. This is a new, STEM-focussed, university opened in 2014, where a new Department of Astronomy is being founded. This is the second university in the country and the only one to offer a science-based curriculum. The Botswana government has identified Astronomy and Space Science as drivers of the conversion of the Botswana economy to a knowledge-based, advanced technology basis and is very supportive of basic research efforts.

We propose a symposium on "Star Formation in the JWST era* since by 2024 numerous important results will have been obtained from this new facility (as well as of course, ALMA and other telescopes) and it will be time for an initial roundup of the transformative observations from JWST.

The symposium will focus on star formation at all redshifts JWST can explore. It will be divided into three sessions, focussed on local, intermediate and high redshift universe and attempt to exploit synergies between these three regimes

Session I: Star formation in the Galaxy and the nearby universe: Giant Molecular Clouds, Protostars, Star-forming regions, Young open clusters

Session II: Measures of extragalactic star formation: IR estimates of star formation, obscured star formation, AGNs, dust and its evolution

Session III: Star formation at high redshift: UV fluxes at z > 10

Of course, these data will be supplemented by observations from other telescopes, such as HST, ALMA, etc.

We will select a broad SOC covering all these areas with invited speakers to offer reviews on each topic.

This will be a symposium where there will be something for everyone and where it will be possible for different sub-fields to interact together and create synergies towards a more comprehensive understanding of star formation at all redshifts and down to fine detail. While JWST data will be the stars of the show, they will be supplemented by other observations, especially in the radio domain (where BIUST will take part in SKA, the African VLBI Network and the Hyrax experiment).