New Cosmology Results From
The Spitzer Space Telescope

Joint Discussion 15, August 22-23, 2006
To be held as part of General Assembly 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic



Joint Discussion Goals: This Joint Discussion will review the Spitzer results and their impact on cosmology and seek to stimulate a synthesis between them and corresponding recent results from increasingly powerful X-ray, radio, optical, near-infrared and gamma-ray observatories. By bringing together experts from all these fields we hope to formulate new approaches to the following questions: How do the currently known galaxy populations emerge and evolve? What is the relation of the infrared populations at high redshift to the populations in the Local Universe? How does the Ultraviolet/Optical-based star formation history compare to the history derived from infrared studies? How is the rising abundance of heavy chemical elements over time related to the history of galaxy formation and evolution? What is the contribution of Active Galactic Nuclei to the luminosity of these populations, and how does that contribution evolve? What is the role of a starburst phase or a heavy accretion phase in the life cycle of individual galaxies? What is the nature of the sources detectable in the X-Rays and infrared, but not the Ultraviolet/Optical, and what other new populations of objects emerge from the new surveys?

Program and Confirmed Speakers:

    0. Overview of Spitzer Space Telescope mission and cosmology-related science

      Welcome (Organizing Committee)
      B. Thomas Soifer (Caltech, USA)

    1. The Modern Universe, z~0 out to z~1, properties of galaxies and AGN


      Seb Oliver (Univ of Sussex, UK)
      Robert Kennicutt (Cambridge Univ, UK)
      Jim Houck (Cornell Univ, USA)

    2. The Evolving Universe, z~1 to 3, properties and evolution of galaxies


      Ranga-Ram Chary (SSC, Caltech, USA)
      David Frayer (SSC, Caltech, USA)
      Guilaine Lagache (IAS, Univ de Paris, France)
      Pieter Van Dokkum (Yale Univ, USA)

    3. The Distant Universe, z~3 to ~5 and beyond


      Tommy Wiklind (ESA/STScI, Sweden)
      Xiaohui Fan (Univ of Arizona, USA)
      Richard Ellis (Caltech, USA)
      Anton Koekemoer (STScI, USA)

    4. Integrated Phenomenological and Theoretical Perspectives


      Marijn Franx (Leiden Univ, Netherlands)
      Mark Dickinson (NOAO, USA)
      Carlos Frenk (Univ Durham)
      Jean-Loup Puget (IAS, Univ de Paris, France)
      Sylvain Veilleux (Univ Maryland, USA)

    5. Summary talk


Conference Poster:
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Agenda (pdf)

Abstracts (pdf)


Scientific Organizing Committee: J. Bergeron (France), C. Cesarsky (France), V. Charmandaris (Greece), T. Courvoisier (Switzerland), G. Helou (USA, Chair), M. Im (Republic of Korea), L. Infante (Chile), R. Ivison (UK), H. Okuda (Japan), Jan Palouš (Czech Republic), C. Steidel (USA), and R. Sunyaev (Russian Federation).