Dear Colleagues,
We would like to draw your attention to an upcoming specialist Science Requirements Workshop taking place in Meudon, France, 2nd to 4th May 2018, for our recently-funded EU H2020 project “LOFAR For Space Weather (LOFAR4SW)”. This 42-month project carries out a design study and key prototyping activities to detail a potential future upgrade path of the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope to enable space weather monitoring in parallel with radio astronomy operations. The project is led by ASTRON in The Netherlands with key partner institutes across the UK, France, Poland, Germany, Ireland, and Sweden. The project commenced on 1st December 2017; for further details please see: www.lofar4sw.eu.
The scope of the workshop is to gather community-wide inputs in the use of LOFAR technology for future dedicated space-weather science, monitoring, and forecasting capabilities so as to set clear science requirements on the design study. A major outcome of the workshop will be a list of interested scientists, potential science use cases, and the desired system characteristics of an upgraded LOFAR4SW system capable of a varied set of 24/7 space-weather observations covering Sun to ionosphere, as well as other related areas of relevance. The ultimate driving factor is the space-weather value each science case provides, balanced by the feasibility of the associated technical and operational requirements, and the budget needed to achieve them.
If you have an interest in assisting the team in pulling together the science requirements to progress the LOFAR4SW project and/or have an interest in LOFAR being made a fully advanced space-weather capable instrument, then please can you send your: (i) Name; (ii) Position; (iii) Affiliation (and country); (iv) Relevant Experience (100 words or fewer); and (v) Statement of your Potential Contribution to the Science Requirements (100 words or fewer); to the Science Work Package Leader Nicole Vilmer (Nicole.Vilmer@obspm.fr), no later than 23:59UT on Sunday 11 March 2018. Expressions of interest will be evaluated within a few days of the deadline and notifications of acceptance or otherwise for your ability to participate in the workshop will be sent out no later than 23:59UT on Monday 19th March 2018. Regrettably, no funding is available to support general participants.
Spaces are limited and we will be taking a pragmatic approach of “first-come, first-served” while maintaining the large breadth of scientific and technical inputs and advice needed for a truly-successful Science Requirements Workshop.
We look forward to hearing from you very soon.
Best wishes,
Dr Mario M. Bisi (on behalf of the LOFAR4SW Project Team)
Leader of LOFAR4SW Work Package 4 – System Design