EDGE banner

The Explorer of Diffuse emission and Gamma-ray burst Explosions (EDGE) mission

The UK astronomical community is invited to a one-day meeting on

Wednesday 25th April 2007

at University College London (UCL)

Room Roberts 106, in the Roberts Building

(right at the bottom in the middle of this map, in Torrington Place; other maps of the area around UCL can be found here)


to discuss the science case and UK participation in the 'Explorer of Diffuse emission and Gamma-ray burst Explosions (EDGE)' which will be proposed as a medium-sized mission for the ESA Cosmic Vision programme. EDGE carries a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) monitor, a wide-field CCD imager and a wide-field, high resolution, cryogenic X-ray spectrograph, and has the capability for automatic, fast re-pointing in response to GRBs.

The morning will consist of a set of talks about the EDGE mission, its main scientific drivers, and its capabilities. In the afternoon we will have a series of talks about the ambitious science that will become possible with EDGE, in the context of UK science priorities. Following this there will be ample time for short contributed talks on individual science topics, and ample time for questions and discussion. The meeting will close with a discussion of the plans for the preparation of the science case, and UK participation in the EDGE mission.

The meeting is expected to start at 10:30 am (coffee available from 10:00 am) and end at about 4:00 pm. Here is a preliminary programme:

10.00 am Coffee + Registration
10.30 am Welcome (Mat Page - MSSL/UCL)
10.40 am The Cosmic Vision process in the UK (Chris Castelli - STFC)
10:55 am The EDGE Science Case (Luigi Piro - IASF/INAF; 30 min + 10 min questions)
11.35 am The EDGE Mission (Jan-Willem den Herder - SRON; 25 min + 10 min questions)
12:00 pm Wide-field Imager (Andrew Holland - Brunel; 15 min + 5 min questions)
12.20 pm - 1.30 pm Sandwich lunch on site
1:30 pm Formation of the WHIM (Tom Theuns - Durham; 15 min + 5 min questions)
1:50 pm Galaxy Groups and Baryon Physics with EDGE (Trevor Ponman - Birmingham; 20 min + 5 min questions)
2:15 pm Nearby clusters and EDGE (Jeremy Sanders - Cambridge; 10 min + 5 min questions)
2:30 pm Gamma-ray bursts and EDGE (Dick Willingale - Leicester; 20 min + 5 min questions)
2:55 pm Locating the dark bursts with EDGE (Patricia Schady - MSSL/UCL; 10 min + 5 min questions)
3:10 pm AGN outflows (Graziella Branduardi-Raymont - MSSL/UCL; 15 min + 5 min questions)
3.30 pm Coffee
3.45 pm Cosmic Vision submission process, how to contribute, support letters
4.00 pm Close

Those interested in attending should forward their contact details to Mat Page (mjp@mssl.ucl.ac.uk), copied to David Hall (David.Hall@brunel.ac.uk).