Midwest Astrochemistry Consortium


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EFI Meeting
Astrochemistry @ Illinois

Hosted by:
University of IL at Urbana Champaign

Questions?
Contact Ben McCall.

 
A mini-symposium on "Interstellar Molecules" will be held at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. This event is co-sponsored by the Midwest Astrochemistry Consortium.

Date: Friday, April 20, 2007
Time: 10:00am - 5:30pm
Location: Research Institute Building, 5640 S. Ellis Ave., Room 480

Announcement of EFI Mini-Symposium (PDF)
Abstracts for EFI Mini-Symposium (PDF)
Campus map showing Research Institutes

Astronomy is the almighty science. "It got physics started by showing the beautiful simplicity of the motion of stars and planets" (Feynman Lecture I. 3-6). Now it is beginning to engulf chemistry by showing exquisite spectra! It has been observationally established that hydrogen in the Universe is more molecular than atomic, over 100 molecules exist abundantly in interstellar space, and molecules are essential for star formation. We here discuss some recent developments starting from the most fundamental H3+, which plays the pivotal role in interstellar chemistry, to the diffuse interstellar bands, an enigma for astronomers for nearly 100 years, whose carriers are yet to be identified but are surely complex organic molecules.

AGENDA

10:00 am Opening Remarks
Jim Pilcher (UofC)
10:05 am "H3+: A Tracer of the Cosmic Ray Ionization Rate in Diffuse Clouds"
Benjamin J. McCall (Univ. of IL, Urbana-Champaign)
10:40 am "Central Molecular Zone: the Treasure House of H3+"
Takeshi Oka (UofC)
11:15 am "Masers as Probes of Interacting Supernova Remnants and Massive Star Formation in the Nuclear Disk of the Galaxy"
Farhad Yusef-Zadeh (Northwestern University)
12:00 pm Lunch Talk: "Mega-masers, Hubble Constant, and Dark Energy"
Fred K. Y. Lo (National Radio Astronomy Observatory)
1:05 pm "UV/Optical Observations of Diatomic Molecules in Diffuse and Translucent Clouds"
Daniel E. Welty (UofC)
1:40 pm "Molecular Anions in the Laboratory and in Space"
Michael C. McCarthy (Harvard Univ.)
2:15 pm Break
2:35 pm "A Quest to Reveal the Signatures of Aromatic Compounds in Space"
Robert J. McMahon (Univ. of Wisconsin)
3:10 pm "Diffuse Interstellar Bands: Ubiquitous Large Molecules in Diffuse and Translucent Clouds"
Donald G. York (UofC)
3:45 pm Break
4:00 pm "Midwest Astrochemistry Consortium"
Eric Herbst (Ohio State University)
4:10 pm "A New Model for Complex Chemistry in Hot Cores"
Susanna L. Widicus Weaver (Univ. of IL, Urbana-Champaign)
4:30 pm "Chemistry as a Tool to Understand the Kinematics of Prestellar Cores"
Sebastien Maret (Univ. of Michigan)
4:50 pm "An Experimental Approach to the Prediction of Complete Millimeter and Submillimeter Spectra at Astrophysical Temperatures"
Ivan Medvedev (Ohio State University)
5:10 pm "Searching for Organic Molecules in Protoplanetary Disks"
Erika Gibb (University of Missouri at St. Louis)
5:30 pm Adjournment