This award will provide participant support for early career scientists and graduate students to participate in the PACIFIC 2011 Symposium. This symposium will focus on the latest developments at the interface of particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology and on their ramifications for understanding fundamental interactions.
It will be held September 8-13, 2011 at the University of California Richard B. Gump South Pacific Research Station, located on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia.
For Broader Impacts, it has a particular focus on early career scientists and graduate students. To make the symposium more accessible to the general public they have integrated a public lecture by one of the symposium organizers into the schedule.
NSF funding has enabled several young researchers to participate in an exciting scientific symposium, PACIFIC-2011. This international conference brought together scientists from around the world to discuss the latest advances in the rapidly developing field of particle astrophysics and cosmology, and to facilitate international and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Thanks to the ample new data and a plethora of theoretical ideas, the field of astro-particle physics has become the source of excitement and discoveries. The symposium succeeded in bringing together researchers from the United States, as well as other countries, representing Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. The scientific program included 30 presentations on a wide range of topics, which were followed by discussions. Both senior and young researchers were among the participants. The conference presentations are archived; they are available athttp://pacific.physics.ucla.edu. In addition to scientific work, the participants engaged in public outreach. We organized a public lecture by Professor Bernard Sadoulet, "The bright and the dark sides in our understanding of the Big Bang", delivered in French language. The lecture discussed topics in modern cosmology, in particular, dark matter and dark energy. The public lecture was a great success, and the conference room turned out to be too small for all the members of the general public who responded to our announcement. With people seating and standing in the isles, the lecture was followed by a lively discussion and a presentation delivered by the local amateur astronomers.
