This award will provide financial support for the international conference A Population Explosion: The Nature and Evolution of X-ray Binaries in Diverse Environments to be held in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, 28 October to 2 November 2007.
This conference is focused on the dramatic increase in the number and variety of known x-ray binaries and the need to take a broader look at the binary population, including the feedback and interaction with the environment, both within our Galaxy and in external systems. In particular, the organizers will highlight information obtained from observations at "non-traditional" wavelengths, especially the infrared, and to explore how the current and future large scale surveys at various wavelengths will contribute to the understanding of the X-ray binary population and their environment.
The scientific program is organized along five topics (one per day):
. X-ray binary jets and outflows in high and low X-ray luminosity systems . Galactic Center accreting binary population . Obscured populations, INTEGRAL sources, and supergiant fast X-ray transients . Extragalactic X-ray binary populations and ultraluminous X-ray sources . X-ray binary population synthesis and stellar evolution
The meeting is designed with an emphasis on discussion. Attendance will be limited to 150 participants. To facilitate this discussion, an extra 30 minutes will be scheduled per session to allow discussions to continue past the nominal allocated time after invited and contributed talks. Poster presenters will also be encouraged to present a single slide summary of their poster in the middle of each appropriate topical session.
The proceedings will be made available to the community and general public through electronic means, namely the The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, the Cornell University Library astrophysics preprint server (astro-ph), and online journals. Full texts of the proceedings will be available through Astrophysics Data System. Edited CDs of the proceedings will also be distributed to all participants.
