The EVLA will improve on the continuum sensitivity of the VLA by a factor of 10; allow access to all frequencies between 1 and 50 GHz, with instantaneous bandwidths of up to 8 GHz; and provide tens of thousands to millions of spectral channels, allocated in up to 64 independently tunable and enormously flexible sub-bands. This vast increase in observing power brings unprecedented scientific capability to centimeter wavelengths, making the EVLA a world-leading radio telescope in the next decade.
With limited shared-risk observing starting early in 2010, and full operational capability in 2013, the NRAO is sponsoring and hosting a series of workshops to bring together astronomers from across the electromagnetic spectrum to start exploring the wide range of scientific questions for which the EVLA will be a pivotal instrument.
The second workshop in this series will focus on observations of stars, both on and off the main sequence. The VLA revolutionized the field of stellar radio astronomy, with detections across almost the entire Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, and opened entirely new fields of research. The EVLA promises similarly impressive advances, with massive improvements in sensitivity, instantaneous bandwidth, frequency coverage, spectral capability, and transient source response.
The object of this conference is to explore what this will mean for studies of stars. Some examples include:
While the EVLA alone will make many new discoveries, instrumentation at other wavelengths has improved enormously as well. Hence this conference will emphasize synoptic approaches addressing, e.g., comparison of high energy and non-thermal radio emission, or parallel imaging of radio and infrared molecular emission/absorption and continuum emission.
The 3-day workshop will be held in Socorro, NM on May 26 - 28, 2009 (Tuesday - Thursday). Registration will open on February 20, 2009. There will be no proceedings, but contributions (PowerPoint or pdf format) will be posted and archived on-line.