Scientific Program
During presentation and discussion sessions, along with outdoor activities, each participant will have the chance to exchange ideas with experts from gravitational lensing, but also mathematics, statistics, and machine learning, in order to seek and provide solutions to problems in their respective area of research.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
MORNING (9:00 - 12:00)
9:00-9:30: Introduction and spirit of the meeting (30min)
Summary: Why this conference. Methods+instruments+challenges. What needs to be solved and what are we ready to solve? Time domain and light curves. What predictions do we need to maximize commissioned instrument (Euclid+LSST) science output? Do we need new instruments or new approaches?
Speakers: Giorgos Vernardos and Fred Courbin
9:30-10:30: Introduction round (45min)
Summary: Introduction of everyone, starting with the group leaders and more senior people, and then 2 slides per junior person (PhDs and postdocs) to introduce themselves and their work.
Chair: Lyne Van de Vyvere
10:30-11:15: Lens modelling (45min)
Summary: Presenting the fundamentals of strong gravitational lensing to bring everyone on the same page, covering the whole scope of this meeting, with focus on lens modelling that permeates all the applications.
Speakers: Sherry Suyu
11:15-12:00: Time domain lensing and microlensing part 1 (60min)
Summary: What is time domain lensing and what can we do with it? Challenges on time domain data analysis, what do we need do achieve, how can we achieve it. E.g. do we need time delay challenges?
Speakers: Matt O’Dowd
LUNCH: WE STAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND DISCUSSION CAN CONTINUE AT THE TABLES
Outdoor activity/free time
AFTERNOON (17:00 - 19:30)
17:00-18:00: Current and future data and observations (60min)
Summary: Review of current and future data: first from lens finding, to obtaining redshifts, coarse estimates of models/key quantities, detailed models, and time domain data. This will be explicitly linked to upcoming surveys (Euclid+LSST). A new database containing confirmed and potential lens candidates will be presented. Research activities using the Skinakas telescope on Crete will be presented and possible links to lensing made.
Speakers: Fred Courbin, Vassilis Charmandaris, and Cameron Lemon
18:00-18:45: Introduction to machine learning methods (45min)
Summary: Review of the state-of-the-art in the field of machine learning.
Speakers: Grigoris Tsagkatakis and Yannis Pantazis
18:45-19:30: Round table discussion (45min)
Summary: Discussion on the current challenges in lens modelling, time-domain, and machine learning in relation to current and upcoming data. Re-iterate over the topics discussed in the morning, have more Q&A time, and brainstorm.
Chair: Dominique Sluse
DINNER: WE STAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND DISCUSSION CAN CONTINUE AT THE TABLES
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
MORNING (9:00 - 12:00)
9:00-10:30: Inverse problems in astrophysics (90min)
Summary: Pedagogical review of wavelets and sparsity, comparison of performance between machine learning and sparse reguralization, etc.
Speaker: Jean-Luc Starck
10:30-11:15: Machine learning and inverse problems in the context of lensing (45min)
Summary: Present the applications of these methods to specific lensing applications, creating a mathematical framework that could be used in the various setups. Presentation of gradient methods and autodifferentiation.
Speakers: Austin Peel, Aymeric Galan, and Stefan Schuldt
11:15-12:00: Discussion on machine learning and lensing, part 1 (45min)
Summary: Challenges on machine learning and lensing applications. How good is what has been done so far and how it may need to be improved? What directions/methodologies/novelties from machine learning should we explore?
Chair: Jean-Luc Starck
LUNCH: WE STAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND DISCUSSION CAN CONTINUE AT THE TABLES
Outdoor activity/free time
AFTERNOON (17:00 - 19:30)
17:00-17:45: Time domain lensing and microlensing part 2 (45min)
Summary: First results of applying machine learning to time domain lensing data.
Speakers: Luca BIggio, James Chan, Martin Millon, Henry Best, Joshua Fagin (possibly Simon Huber remotely)
Chair: Sebastian Ertl
17:45-18:30: Discussion on machine learning and lensing, part 2 (45min)
Summary: Challenges on machine learning and lensing applications. How good is what has been done so far and how it may need to be improved? What directions/methodologies/novelties from machine learning should we explore?
Chair: Stefan Schuldt, Grigoris Tsagkatakis
18:30-19:30: Project ideas and collaboration (60min)
Summary: This is where everybody gets to say what they think is the most interesting problems, combining ideas from what was presented so far. A broad yet explicit list of ‘pertinent problems in strong lensing’ will be created which we will work on in the remaining of the meeting. We will split into initial groups to work and discuss on these topics until the next session.
Chair: Matt O’Dowd
DINNER: WE STAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND DISCUSSION CAN CONTINUE AT THE TABLES
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
DAY OUT
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
MORNING (9:00 - 12:00)
9:00-10:00: Report of the groups and round table - part 1 (60min)
Summary: Collecting the ideas that the subgroups have discussed since Tuesday and providing feedback/brainstorm all together on them. We will aim to refine these initial ideas.
Chair: Matt Gomer
10:00-10:15: Coordination to break into groups (15min)
10:15-12:00: Split into groups and work on papers - part 1 (105min)
Summary: Further development of each subgroup’s ideas. Repositories and latex documents with a skeleton of the sub-project are encouraged! We should be creating a clear picture of the projects/papers born at this meeting.
LUNCH: WE STAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND DISCUSSION CAN CONTINUE AT THE TABLES
Outdoor activity/free time
AFTERNOON (17:00 - 19:30)
17:00-18:00: Report of the groups and round table - part 2 (60min)
Summary: Further brainstorming on the progress and potential bottlenecks of the developments since the morning session.
Chair: Karina Rojas
18:00-18:15: Coordination to break into groups (15min)
18:15-19:30: Split into groups and work on papers - part 2 (75min)
Summary: Further development of each subgroup’s ideas. We should now aim for some plots!
DINNER: WE STAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND DISCUSSION CAN CONTINUE AT THE TABLES
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
MORNING (9:00 - 12:00)
9:00-10:00: Report of the groups and round table - part 3 (60min)
Summary: Further brainstorming on the progress of each sub-project, presenting some plots.
Chair: Cameron Lemon
10:00-10:15: Coordination to break into groups (15min)
10:15-12:00: Split into groups and work on papers - part 3 (105min)
Summary: Further development of each subgroup’s ideas. We should be incorporating the various feedback received so far.
LUNCH: WE STAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND DISCUSSION CAN CONTINUE AT THE TABLES
Free time
AFTERNOON (15:00 - 18:00)
15:00-16:30: Final report of the groups and round table - part 4 (90min)
Summary: The groups should present what they have come up with during the meeting.
Chair: James Chan
16:30-17:00: Discussion on setting goals and how to proceed (30min)
Summary: Where do we go from here?
Chair: Giorgos Vernardos, Sherry Suyu, and Fred Courbin
17:00-17:30: Final split into groups and work on papers - part 4 (30min)
Summary: Final discussion among the groups to plan how to proceed with the completion of their sub-project.
17:30-18:00: Summary of the meeting (30min)
Speaker: Dominique Sluse