Splinter Meeting Populations
Stellar Populations in and around the Milky Way
Time: Tuesday September 19, 14:00-16:30
and Wednesday September 20, 14:00-16:30
and 17:00-19:00
Room: HS5
Convenors: S. Kamann (Liverpool),
E. K. Grebel (Heidelberg),
M. Hilker (Garching),
E. Starkenburg (Potsdam),
S. Dreizler (Göttingen),
T.-O. Husser (Göttingen)
Our view of our cosmic neighbourhood is getting more and more detailed. With the Hubble Space
Telescope, it became possible to resolve many members of the Local Group into individual stars, a
legacy that will soon be continued by its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope. In the
meantime, our Galaxy is being surveyed in unprecedented detail by the Gaia satellite and wide-field
imaging surveys are continuing to discover its faintest companion galaxies. In the not too distant
future, the E-ELT will push the study of resolved stellar populations towards local volume galaxies.
Spectroscopic follow-up is indispensable for the interpretation of the photometric and astrometric
data, therefore the advent of powerful spectrographs marked a cornerstone for the study of resolved
stellar populations. On small scales, integral-field spectrographs such as KMOS or MUSE allow us
to target individual stars even in crowded stellar fields nowadays. On larger scales, the next
generation of multi-object spectrographs (including 4MOST or the proposed MOSAIC instrument)
will soon revolutionise our capabilities for wide-field spectroscopic surveys.
The purpose of this splinter is to bring together the German community working on optical/NIR
spectroscopy of resolved stellar populations. We plan to discuss the current status of the field,
identify open questions, and exchange about new ideas with current and future observing facilities.
The topics we aim to cover include (but are not exclusive to)
- The spectroscopic view of Gaia on the Milky Way
- The stellar populations in star clusters and their dynamics
- The smallest satellites in our Local Group
- Star formation histories of nearby galaxies
- Wide fields vs. crowded fields – combining multi-object and integral-field spectroscopy
We plan to have a healthy mix of contributed and invited talks. Graduate students are especially
encouraged to apply.
Program
14:00-16:30
Session 1: Tuesday September 19 (HS5)
14:00-16:30
Session 2: Wednesday September 20 (HS5)
16:30-17:00
Coffee Break & Poster Session (Foyer Physics)
17:00-19:00
Session 3: Wednesday September 20 (HS5)
Related contributions