The First Modest Satellite Meeting :
School on NUMERICAL N-BODY DYNAMICS
Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg, France, 19-22 March 2004
1. Scope
2. Pedagogical aspects
3. The lecturers
4. Registration and Finances
5. Further details / contact
6. List of confirmed participants; postscript version click here. 7. Waiting list
Important update: 22/02/2004
The list of participants posted (see link above) will be updated on 28 February and thereafter daily. The
waiting list consists mainly of staff or pdras ; priority was given to PhD students. We regret any frustration
this decision may have caused.
Due to an overwhelming demand, we are forced to close the registration period as of 10/02/2004. We
regret to have caused disappointment but have had no other choice given the limited number of places
available. Thank you for your understanding, and for your interest in the school.
Scope of the school
The board of graduate studies of the Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg is sponsoring a four-day
school on gravitational dynamics to be held at the astronomical observatory. The aim of the
school is to provide an introductory, hands-on approach to the integration of the equations of
motion of classical Newtonian gravity using computers.
The school is open to any one interested in the dynamics of self-gravitating systems,
such as star clusters and galaxies, and is well-suited for PhD students or PDRAs
starting up in the field.
The lecturers, the medium
of instruction
The lecture course will be presented jointly by Douglas Heggie (Edinburgh), Piet Hut (IAS, Princeton), Junichiro Makino (Tokyo) and Peter Teuben (Maryland). The school will
be conducted in English, though assistance will also be available in French.
Pedagogical aspects
Lectures notes will be made available to participants well before the start of the school.
The main material is already publicly available at the web site
http://www.ArtCompSci.org in the form of the book Moving
Stars Around by Piet Hut and Jun Makino. We urge participants
to familiarize themselves with that book before attending the
workshop.
The days will be divided in several modules and will follow a hands-on, question/answer
approach to the problem sets with the lecturers.
Dual-processor computers (O/S Linux Red Hat or clone thereof) will be available
throughout.
A preliminary list of topics includes :
1) Introduction to self-gravitating stellar systems, 2) Up-stream Eulerian scheme,
3) Leap-frog integrators, 4) The Hermite scheme, 5) Developing an N-body
code, 6) Modularity and the Hermite scheme, 7) Binary stars & numerical precision,
etc.
Registration deadline
The registration deadline is set for 19 February 2004; the number of
participants
will be of a maximum of thirty. To register,
please write to the address given below.
PhD students will be asked to provide a letter of support from their supervisor.
Financial assistance & lodging
There will be no registration fee. The teaching material and peripherals will be av
ailable
on-site. Participants from outside Strasbourg will lodge at the CIARUS in shared rooms
(see url http://www.ciarus.com). Lodging (3 nights including breakfast) will be
covered
through a grant from the French Action
Specifique pour la Simulation Numerique en Astronomie (ASSNA). Limited funding
will be available to cover travel expenses.
Local Organising Committee
Christian Boily, Olivier Bienayme, Jean-Marie Hameury, Thomas Keller, Ariane Lancon, Sandrine Langenbacher
Sponsors
The School is integrated to the Ecole doctorale de l'Universite Louis Pasteur and the
Modest consortium
of stellar dynamics modellers,
and is made possible through a grant awarded by ASSNA and the Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg.
Further details
Those interested should contact Christian Boily (cmb@astro.u-strasbg.fr)
or write to the following address :
Observatoire astronomique, 11 rue de l'Universite, Strasbourg 67000, France.
Tel.: +33-(0)3.90.24.24.36 / Fax +33-(0)3.90.24.24.17 . Updates will be posted
at this url.
Go to SCYON -- click here.