Conference Photo

12 April 2012

conference photo

Click to see the photo in full size.

Scientific Rationale

8 August 2011

This is the website for the Dynamics meet Kinematics Tracers Workshop held on 10-14 April 2012 at Schloss Ringberg.

Over the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in both the quality and quantity of kinematic observations, of unresolved but especially of resolved kinematic tracers. The latter discrete kinematic tracers range from radial velocities of galaxies in clusters at high redshift to motions of individual stars in the Local Group. Constructing dynamical models that fits these kinematic tracers is a powerful way to infer the underlying total mass distributions, from central (intermediate) massive black holes to dark matter haloes, as well as to derive intrinsic shapes and internal orbital structures. In addition, there is the potential to recover fossil records, such as tidal streams, of which the stars have been dispersed in positions and velocities, but which have been preserved in the combined phase-space.

Unfortunately, in building such dynamical model, theoretical assumptions and methodological simplifications are usually made that not only lead to loss of observable information, but are often astrophysically unjustified. Moreover, various aspects that can help unravelling the formation history, such as chemical properties of the kinematics tracers, are not yet (directly) incorporated into dynamical models. The goal of this workshop is to discuss overcoming these limitations by bringing together experts both on the theoretical, dynamical as well as observational, kinematical aspects.

Specific topics for this workshop include:

  • How can we optimally use discrete kinematics tracers?
  • How do we properly take into account the observational selection effects?
  • What is the most appropriate modeling approach, balancing speed versus accuracy?
  • How do we incorporate additional information such as chemical properties?
  • How do we best treat kinematics from unresolved stellar populations?