Microquasar Workshop: Microquasars and Beyond

This workshop is the seventh of the series of conferences mainly devoted to Galactic black holes. The conference will cover all topics related to relativistic jet sources in the universe including microquasars, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray bursts. The results of the analysis of data from high energy missions (RXTE, Chandra, XMM-Newton, INTEGRAL, Swift, Suzaku, Agile) as well as from ground based observatories in the optical, infrared and radio bands will be presented. The emphasis will be on the formation and evolution of jets, and their relation to other accretion components. The broad context of the workshop will also allow researchers to present their results on the comparisons between microquasars, neutron stars, ultraluminous X-ray sources, active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts.

The workshop also intends to include presentations on recent missions (e.g. GLAST, ASTROSAT) and missions in preparation e.g. IXO concentrating on the prospects of black hole research with those missions. The program will be organized in sessions centered around a limited number of invited reviews, with contributed presentations and ample time for discussion. Young researchers will be encouraged to contribute.

The workshop focuses on the physics of relativistic jet sources in the Universe, from Galactic Microquasars to Active Galactic Nuclei and Gamma-Ray Bursts. This is an epoch when a large number of high-energy astronomical missions are operative (RossiXTE, Chandra, XMM-Newton, INTEGRAL, Swift, Suzaku). The large wealth of X-ray and gamma-ray data, coupled with ground-based observations in the optical-IR-radio bands, provides increasing information on microquasars, allowing the investigation of the physical processes for the formation and the evolution of relativistic jets, as well as their relation to the accretion process. The information obtained from galactic systems can be compared with that from other objects, from Ultraluminous X-ray Sources in external galaxies, to powerful Active Galactic Nuclei, to Gamma-Ray Bursts. This workshop, the sixth in a series devoted primarily to Galactic Systems, is intended for the presentation and in particular the discussion of recent results and physical models of microquasars seen in a broader context, also involving extragalactic sources.

Editorial Board
Belloni Tomaso (chairman)