XXIX Canary Islands Winter School of Astrphysics
Applications of Radiative Transfer to stellar and planetary atmospheres
Organizers: L. Crivellari (IAC, Spain), S. Simón-Díaz (IAC, Spain)
Date: November 13-17, 2017. La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands
Webpage: https://meetings.iac.es/winterschool/2017/
The XXIX Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics, organized by the
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
(IAC), focused on Applications of Radiative Transfer to Stellar and Planetary Atmospheres. The aim of this School is to bring together in a relaxed working environment distinguished scientists who, in recent years, have paved the way to major advances in the treatment and applications of radiative transfer and young researchers who want to broaden their knowledge in this specific field of Astrophysics by attending advanced lectures and interchanging acquired expertise and skills among them.
Rationale of the school
The quantitative analysis of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by astrophysical objects is the unique tool we have at hands for the diagnostics of their physical properties. The study of stellar atmospheres has experienced in the last decades a great step forward, both in theory and computational techniques. However, a well-founded fear is starting to arise that, at the generational turnover, young practitioners in the field may lack in a firm grip on the underlying physics and use the available computer codes as black-boxes. In addition, radiative transfer in Astrophysics is living nowadays a period of transition from old to new fields of applications. Among them, the investigation of exoplanets, which implies the quantitative study of planetary atmospheres, and the interpretation of high resolution infrared spectra, for which theoretical progress did not yet go with the impressive technological advances achieved.
Therefore, an advanced school dedicated to the fundamental physical processes in both stellar and planetary atmospheres, as well as the bases of the numerical treatment of radiative transfer, is more timely than ever, both to prevent the risk above mentioned and to form researchers with the background required to face the present and future challenges.