International Workshop

High Energy Astrophysics in the Next Decade

--- NeXT and Future Missions ---

June 21-23, 2006
International House, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan



Currently several X-ray missions are in orbit, including RXTE, Chandra, XMM-Newton, Integral, Swift, Suzaku, and producing excellent data. Seven years from the launches of Chandra and XMM-Newton, and a half year from the Suzaku launch, it is good time to summarize what we have learned and to discuss science objectives to be explored in the next decade. Several new missions to extend those results are presently under discussion at various places in the world, and many key technologies are being developed covering from soft X-ray to gamma-ray wavelengths. In such situation, we would like to host a workshop to discuss,

(1) key science objectives of the next decade,
(2) key technologies which enable to explore the key science,
(3) future high-energy astrophysics missions and international collaborations.

The NeXT (New X-ray Telescope / Non-thermal energy eXploration Telescope) mission has been studied as the next key X-ray astronomy mission of Japan, which will be developed under international collaborations. It has completed the pre-phase A study and will start the phase-A study soon. NeXT could be the earliest full X-ray mission in the next decade. It must be developed with support of the world community. We would like to ask you to attend the workshop and to be involved in the discussions on scientific objectives, mission design and technical developments.

The two large missions, Constellation-X and XEUS, are being studied as US and ESA-Japan missions respectively aiming at launch of late next decade. Though the boundary conditions are not clear yet, it is also important for the world community to consider the science goals and technology developments for such corner stone type of observatories. Support of world community really strengthens the proposals in individual space agencies.

We are planning 3 days for the workshop. About the half of time will be devoted for the discussion of the science, while the other half for instrumentation for NeXT and future missions. The workshop will be mainly composed of invited talks, but we will accept a limited number (~30) of contributed poster papers.


Kazuhisa Mitsuda (ISAS/JAXA),
Tadayuki Takahashi (ISAS/JAXA),
Hideyo Kunieda (Nagoya University and ISAS/JAXA)

Supported by ISAS/JAXA
High Energy Astrophysics Association in Japan
and Kakenhi "Black hole astronomy"