Intrinsic Alignments and Cosmic Shear: 31st March

Intrinsic Alignments and Cosmic Shear
Workshop at UCL 31st March - 4th April 2008

Intrinsic Alignments and Cosmic Shear: Schedule

Location: Malet Place Engineering rooms 1.13 and 1.04.
This map is useful despite having North pointing left, because the relevant building is outlined in red, and you can also see Tavistock Square, which the Tavistock Hotel overlooks.

Day 1: Monday 31st March
Overall topic: Theoretical predictions of intrinsic alignments

10:00am		Coffee
10:30	Ofer Lahav	Welcome
10.40	Alan Heavens	Overview of intrinsic alignments	pdf
11.20	Rob Crittenden	Theory basics	ppt, pdf
12:30		Lunch (provided)
2.00	Bjoern Schaefer	Angular momentum correlations in the large-scale structure	pdf
2.30	Oliver Hahn	Halo spin and shape alignments with the cosmic web	pdf
3.00	Jochen Weller	Lead discussion and comment on preceeding talks
4:00		Tea
4:30	Alan Heavens	Lead discussion on what else is needed	See google doc
5:30		Find hotel etc
6:30		Dinner in Navarros Tapas bar

Day 2: Tuesday 1st April
Overall topic: Observations and implications of intrinsic alignments

10:00am		Coffee
10.30	Rachel Mandelbaum	Constraints from SDSS	pdf
11.30	Catherine Heymans	Comparing simulations with observations	pdf
12.00	Reiko Nakajima	Lead discussion and comment on preceeding talks
12:30		Lunch at Chutneys Indian buffet
2.00	Elisabetta Semboloni	Contamination of 3 point shear statistics	ppt, pdf
2.30	Michael Schneider	Coordinate list of future surveys	See google doc and
3:00	Filipe Abdalla	Realistic photometric redshifts from future surveys	ppt, pdf
3.30	Stephane Paulin-Henrikkson	Lead discussion and comment on preceeding talks
4:00		Tea
4:30	Catherine Heymans	Lead discussion on current and future data	See google doc

Day 3: Wednesday 2nd April
Overall topic: Impact of intrinsic alignments on future cosmic shear measurements

10:00am		Coffee
10.30	Adam Amara	Requirements on intrinsic alignment removal (tbc)	pdf
11.00	Benjamin Joachimi	Redshift weighting of correlation functions to remove GI	pdf
11.30	Tom Kitching	Systematic effects on 3D weak lensing
12.00	Elisabetta Semboloni	Lead discussion and comment on preceeding talks
12:30		Lunch
2.00	Sarah Bridle	Estimating cosmology simultaneously with IA	ppt, pdf
2:30	Filipe Abdalla	Lead discussion of how photozs impact on removal of IA	ppt, pdf
3:00	Adam Amara	Lead discussion of what observations we need (2pt, 3pt, regions of redshift space or galaxy type, etc.)	pdf
3:30	Catherine Heymans	Lead discussion of realistic prospects for making these observations (in current/future surveys, and/or need to put in new observing proposals?)
4:00		Tea
4:30	Uros Seljak	Current thoughts on IA
4:50	Rachel Mandelbaum	Plan theory and observational tasks for tomorrow	See google doc

Day 4: Thur 3 April
Overall topic: Real-time new work on tasks arising from discussion on previous days

10:00am	Coffee
10:30	Meet in room 1.13 and go round table to hear (max 3) things that each person wants to focus on for the morning
11.00	Split up into groups of common interest to discuss the above (in rooms 1.13 and 1.04)
12:30	Lunch
2:00	Meet in room 1.13 and hear conclusions from each group	See google doc
3.00	Make new task list and split up again (in rooms 1.13 and hopefully 1.20 (but not 1.04 since this is used by others))
4:00	Tea in room 1.13

The theory-related tasks are likely to include

Deciding whether existing simulations are sufficient, and if not, designing new ones;
Discussing the methods for populating the halos in N-body simulations and modeling the dynamical evolution of the stellar component;
Discussing the feasibility of using hydro sims to study intrinsic alignments;
Discussing further analytic treatments of intrinsic alignments.

This list is of course not exhaustive and the discussion may take different directions based on the first few days of presentations.

The observational tasks are likely to include

Identifying the difficulties involved with any of the measurements that have been determined on the first few days to be important and/or useful.
Deciding what intrinsic alignments measurements can be done with existing datasets, and planning the details of those measurements.
Determining whether there are any prospects for other useful observations for which we may need to propose for observing time.

Please see and add to the notes here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcrd4nqb_34d9st35cs

Day 5: Fri 4 April
Overall topic: Plans for the future

See google doc for some notes on the meeting. Please feel free to add your comments and any further thoughts or developments.