7th Workshop of the SCAR AAA
Sept. 19, 2023 – Sept. 21, 2023 @ Svalbard (Norway)
SCAR AAA Meets Above the Arctic Circle
The seventh meeting of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Astronomy and Astrophysics from Antarctica (SCAR AAA) was held September 19-21, 2023, about 1400 km from the North Pole in the northernmost town in the world, Svalbard, Norway. The three day conference brought together dozens of researchers from nine countries to discuss, coordinate and promote astronomical and astrophysical activities in Antarctica. SCAR AAA works to optimize outcomes from international investments in Antarctic research and to maximize opportunities for productive interactions with other disciplines.
At the meeting, the uniqueness of the extreme Antarctic environment as a viewing platform to explore the universe was evident in talks that covered microwave, infrared, optical, and neutrino astronomy and cosmic ray research. The extended continuous darkness is ideal for exoplanet searches for example. Other presentations described how the trip to and from Antarctica provides an opportunity to investigate lower energy cosmic rays using ship-borne neutron monitors—the changing geomagnetic field with latitude acts as a natural energy selector to investigate solar energetic particles.
The quest to see the imprint of the very earliest epochs of the universe on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) was a recurrent theme. The richness of the CMB science was also presented. Topics included efforts to study spatial spectral distortions, galaxy clusters, CMB lensing, transient phenomena and participating in the Event Horizon Telescope efforts to image Black Holes. Modeling measurements of the foregrounds from dust, which can produce deviations that mimic the expected CMB signal, was another topic that was presented along with advances in CMB instrumentation.
The meeting ended with a series of talks related to detection of neutrinos, an active area of research in both the Arctic and Antarctic. Recent results, upgrades underway, and future plans for the South Pole IceCube Neutrino Observatory were presented. The advances in modeling the optical properties of the ice, critical for accurately determining the path of the neutrinos, were also described.
There were a few talks that described Arctic research as well. An overview of Space Science research at the University of Oslo identified many parallels between the Arctic and Antarctic. A very interesting logistic challenge, moving the Greenland Telescope from the coastal Pituffik (formerly Thule) to Summit Station, was described. One interesting suggestion was to investigate using airships (blimps)! Another Arctic project underway is placing antennae in the ice to look for radio signals produced from very high energy neutrino interactions.
Tying this meeting all together so to speak was a presentation and art show of large format prints taken through a lens mado ice. Artist Tristan Duke returned to Svalbard to present images he captured two years earlier using lenses made from glacial ice. He also presented the first views of images made earlier this summer in a week-long residency at UW-Madison. This was a perfect compliment to a meeting held in the indescribably beautiful setting among the Arctic archipelago.
The next in-person meeting of SCAR AAA will be at the SCAR Open Science Conference in Pucón, Chile from 19-23 August 2024. Planning is underway for future SCAR AAA workshops held in even years.
