A SKELETON SCIENCE CASE FOR EXTREMELY LARGE (20m - 100m) GROUND-BASED TELESCOPES (ELTs):

From a workshop at the UKATC, ROE, Edinburgh, 25-26 September 2000

Purpose of this document

This ``skeleton science case'' is intended for the use of attendees at the Leiden workshop on Science with Extremely Large Telescopes which is to be held at the Lorentz Centre, Leiden University Observatory, from 14-18 and 21-25 May 2001 (at which website registration and other information can be found under ``Program 2001'').

The first week will resemble the Edinburgh meeting in that it is planned to set the (technical) scene with a morning of plenary presentations from the Projects, then to split into three groups each covering one of three broad topics as before (planets & stars; stars & galaxies; galaxies & cosmology), before a final plenary session to allow cross-reporting from the chairs of the topic groups. The topic groups will have sub-chairs with responsibility for collecting material on subdivisions of their topic.

The second part of the workshop, 21-25 May, will be the actual assembly of the Science Case as a document, which will be done by an editorial group comprising Tim Hawarden,  John Davies, Gerry Gilmore and Roberto Gilmozzi, plus, for as much of this time as possible, the chairs and subchairs of the three topic groups.

Accordingly there will be a strong emphasis on pre-meeting preparation. Participants in this workshop are being asked to bring prepared material for discussion, modification and likely incorporation into the (evolving) Master Science Case for ELTs, the production of which is the main goal of the May workshop. This document is intended as a help in this preparation.

To this end it indicates the current status of the ELT projects currently underway, of the critical technologies and then, to set a context, outlines the main current questions which are being asked and problems addressed in the various fields, as identified in Edinburgh in September 2000. Simulators are provided to assist in designing model observing programmes.

Contents of the ``Skeleton Science Case''

1. ELTs: Technical background
1.1  Summary, and How the idea developed
1.2  ELT concepts being studied: Hobby-Eberly++, CELT, XLT, MAXAT, OWL
1.3  Critical technologies for ELTs: smart structures, segment mass-production, multi-conjugate AO
1.4  Operation mode conflict: diffraction or seeing limited?
1.5  Outline Performance Comparisons with 8-m class cold Space Telescope
1.6  References to ELT project information
2. The UKATC Edinburgh Workshop in September 2000
2.1  Outline of the workshop organisation NB: Presentations available here
2.2.One country's perspective: Canadian proposals and Goals.
2.3 Hans Zinnecker's impressions of his meeting
2.4 Dainis Dravins' comments on the meetings
3. The UKATC Workshop: Science topic discussions
3.1. Planets and Stars (Chair: Penny Sackett)
J. Drew: Accretion discs and stars young and old
3.2 Stars and Galaxies (Chair: Michael Merrifield)
A comprehensive report "R.Wyse: NOAO Panel Report: Stellar Populations Science with Large Telescopes" is available as a .ps file from here (NB: Links to grab .ps text and figs are right at the top of Rosie's webpage.)
3.3 Galaxies and Cosmology (Chair: Bruno Leibengut)
Bob Mann: semi-verbatim summary of Galaxies & Cosmology sessions
4. ELT Performance simulators
4.1  Seeing-limited observations
4.2 "Diffraction-limited " (MC)AO observations

This document assembled and maintained by Tim Hawarden (t.hawarden@roe.ac.uk)
Last update 9 May 2001