Scientific Program


Monday June 22nd 2009


0900 – 0905 Welcome – Jesús Gómez-González (IGN Deputy Director)

0905 – 0910 Welcome by the EXPReS Project Coordinator – Huib J. van Langevelde


SESSION 1 - INTRODUCTORY TALKS – Jesús Gómez González (IGN)


0910 – 0950 Setting the scene; the scientific applications of eVLBI (invited) - John Conway (Onsala Space Observatory)

0950 – 1030 LOFAR project Status (invited) - Michael Garrett (ASTRON)


SESSION 2 - TRANSIENTS I - James Miller-Jones (NRAO)


1030 – 1110 Novae and CV's (invited) - Tim O'Brien (Manchester Univ)


1110 – 1130 Coffee break


1130 – 1210 Probing Gamma-Ray Burst and Supernova Explosions with Radio Observations (invited) - Alexander van der Horst (NASA/MSFC/ORAU)

1210 – 1250 Type II supernovae and starbursts (invited) - Miguel Pérez-Torres (IAA)

1250 – 1320 A new radio supernova in M82 - Andreas Brunthaler (MPIfR, Bonn)


1320 – 1500 Lunch


1500 – 1540 Multi-wavelength observations of High Energy Transients (invited) - Julie McEnery (GSFC-NASA)


SESSION 3 - NON-TRANSIENT EVLBI OBSERVATIONS - Chris Phillips (CSIRO/ATNF)


1540 – 1610 A suspected dark lens revealed with the e-EVN - Zsolt Paragi (JIVE)

1610 – 1640 Is an AGN at the center of the disk galaxy IC 2497 responsible for Hanny's Voorwerp? - Hayden Rampadarath (JIVE/Leiden)


1640 – 1710 Coffee break


1710 – 1740 e-VLBI observations of the ULX at M33 - Alfonso Trejo (UNAM)

1740 – 1830 Spectral line applications using eVLBI (invited) - Andreas Brunthaler (MPIfR Bonn)


1830 – 2030 eVSAG meeting (closed for members only)




Tuesday June 23rd 2009


SESSION 4 - GEODESY AND ASTROMETRY - Huib van Langevelde (JIVE)


0900 – 0940 e-VLBI for geosciences (invited) - Rüdiger Haas (Onsala Space Observatory)

0940 – 1010 Numerical Simulations on the Optimal Geodetic Observing Conditions with RADIOASTRON - Erhu Wei (Wuhan U. China)

1010 – 1040 Multi-view e-VLBI - Maria Rioja, (UWA Australia)



SESSION 5 - TRANSIENTS II - Zsolt Paragi (JIVE)


1040 – 1110 Active Stars and Brown Dwarfs' (invited) - Greg Hallinan (Galway U. Ireland)


1110 – 1140 Coffee break


1140 – 1220 Microquasars & eVLBI: Made for each other? (invited) - Vivek Dhawan (NRAO)

1220 – 1300 The proper motion and changing jet morphology of Cygnus X-3 - James Miller-Jones (NRAO)

1300 – 1320 Correlated radio/X-ray behaviour of Cyg X-3 – Valeriu Tudose (ASTRON)


1320 – 1450 Lunch


TRANSIENTS II (cont) - Alexander van der Horst (NASA/MSFC/ORAU)


1450 – 1520 Variations within the compact jet from the black hole candidate GRS 1915+105 - Anthony Rushton (JBCA/Manchester)

1520 – 1600 Pulsars, eVLBI and LEAP (invited) - Ben Stappers (JBCA/Manchester)


1600 – 1630 Coffee break


1630 – 1710 Monitoring the variable radio sky with LOFAR (invited) - Rob Fender (Southampton U)

1710 – 1750 Standards and systems for transient response (invited) - John Swinbank (Amsterdam U)

1750 – 1900 Panel discussion - Future organisation/multiwavelngth coordination to maximise science impact of eVLBI



21:00 Conference dinner at Restaurant “El Cenador del Prado”




Wednesday June 24th 2009


All sessions at Yebes Observatory


0830 Bus leave from hotel Agumar

0830 – 0945 Drive to Yebes



SESSION 6 - Joint Science/technical session - regional and instrument reports


Part I Chair: John Conway (Onsala Space Observatory)


1000 – 1030 eEVN progress (invited) - Szomoru (JIVE)

1030 – 1100 e-VLBI Activities in Japan (invited) – Mamoru Sekido (Kashima)


1100 – 1130 Coffee break


1130 – 1200 e-VLBI progress in Australia (invited) - Tasso Tzioumis (ATNF, Australia)

1200 – 1230 Chinese VLBI Network and its application to eVLBI (invited) - Chen Zhong (CAS)

1230 – 1300 NRAO VLBA Upgrade Plans and Prospects (invited) - Vivek Dhawan (NRAO)


1300 – 1330 Current status of Korean VLBI Network and future plan for e-VLBI (invited) - Bong Won Sohn (KASSI)


1330 – 1430 Lunch


Part II Chair: Tasso Tzioumis (ATNF)


1430 – 1630 Visit to Yebes observatory.


1630 – 1700 Progress and status of eMERLIN (invited) - Ralph Spencer (JBCA/ Manchester U)

1700 – 1730 Future of eVLBI (invited) - Huib van Langevelde (JIVE)


1730 – 1800 Coffee break


1800 - Return to Madrid



Thursday, June 25th 2009


SESSION 7 - NREN MEETING (Chair: John Chevers - DANTE)


0900 – 0935 Future prospects for GEANT (invited) - John Chevers (DANTE)

0935 – 1000 Connecting telescopes down under - the Australian Research and Education Network - Shaun Amy (CSIRO/ATNF)

1000 – 1025 The Network Infrastructure for radio astronomy in Italy - Mauro Nanni (INAF)

1025 – 1050 Regular e-transfer experiences for geodetic INTENSIVE experiments at Wettzell - Gerhard Kronschnabl (BKG-Wettzell)


1050 – 1120 Coffee


1120 – 1145 Experience gained in using 4 Gigabit Trans-European link from Onsala to Jodrell Bank - Richard Hughes-Jones (DANTE)

1145 – 1210 Discussion of Network Issues


SESSION 8 - e-VLBI TECHNIQUES (Chair: Arpad Szomoru - JIVE)


1210 – 1235 eVLBI Networking Tricks - Paul Boven (JIVE)

1235 – 1300 GPU - channelised eVLBI, a more efficient approach - Richard Dodson (UWA)

1300 – 1325 e-control - a new concept for remote control of VLBI telescopes and first expereince at Wetzell - Christian Plötz (BKG-Wettzell)


1325 - 1450 Lunch


1450 – 1515 eVLBI developments on the LBA - Chris Phillips (CSIRO/ATNF)

1515 – 1540 Connecting iBOBs to the eMERLIN correlator - Jonathan Hargreaves (JBO)

1540 – 1605 European 4 Gbps VLBI and eVLBI – Guifré Molera (Metsähovi RO)


1605 – 1640 Coffee break


SESSION 9 - VDIF SESSION (Chair: Alan Whitney – MIT-Haystack RAO)


1640 – 1710 Introduction VDIF and VTP (invited) - Alan Whitney (MIT-Haystack RAO)

1710 – 1730 A proposal for defining the VLBI Application transport header - Richard Hughes-Jones (DANTE)

1730 – 1830 Open discussion



Friday June 26th 2009


SESSION 10 - SOFTWARE AND DISTRIBUTED CORRELATION (Chair: Richard Hughes-Jones - DANTE)


0900 – 0925 Performance testing of the DiFX correlator - Chris Phillips (CSIRO/ATNF)

0925 – 0950 eVLBI with the SFXC correlator - Mark Kettenis (JIVE)

0950 – 1015 The latest tests of the SFXC correlator - Yuri Pidopryhora (JIVE)

1015 – 1040 User interaction and workflow management in Grid enabled eVLBI experiments - Dominik Stocklosa (PSNC)


1040 – 1110 Coffee break


SESSION 11 - THE FUTURE OF NETWORKS AND VLBI SCIENCE (Chair: Ralph Spencer - JBCA/ Manchester U)


1110 – 1145 Ja-Net prospects (invited) - David Salmon (JANET)

1130 – 1205 Application Driven Petabit Optical Networking (invited) - Ivan Andonovic (Strathclyde U)

1205 – 1240 Long Baselines in the Square Kilometre Array (invited) - Roshene McCool (SPDO)

1240 – 1315 Advances in Optical Networking Technologies Transmission and Switching Techniques for Tb/s of Optical Data (invited) - J-P Hemingway (Ciena Ltd)


1315 – 1330 Discussion and wrap up


1330 Lunch and adjourn