Untitled - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble

Chapter 1
The last Visiting Committee (known as “Evaluation Committee” in France) of LAOG took place on Jan. 22,
2002, i.e., a little less than four years ago. It examined the activity of LAOG covering the previous period
1999-2001, and its prospective for the period 2003-2006. In the present report, written in preparation for next
Evaluation Committe, set to meet in Grenoble on Nov. 3-4, 2005, LAOG scientific activities are described
for the period 2002-2005, covered by the previous prospective exercise, and the present prospective covers the
period 2007-2010 (and even beyond, as will be seen). The ”Activity” parts of the report have thus taken place
under two Directors: C. Perrier until Dec. 31, 2002, and T. Montmerle since Jan. 1st, 2003.
The present document (in English) constitutes the scientific part of the report; the administrative part (in
French), with lists of personnel, detailed budgetary data, etc., is given in a separate document. The complete
bibliography covering the period 2001-2005 is also given as a separate document.
Overall, nearly a decade of scientific activity and projects (prospective) is described.
More precidely, this report tries to summarize in 120 pages not only four years of LAOG actvities (i.e.,
about 400 refereed papers, totalling about 5000 printed pages), but also four to ten years of projects ahead of
us. The presentation is straightforward. As will be explained, the activities of LAOG are now conducted by
four scientific teams. Thus each team describes its activities and projects in a specific “part” of the present
Report. These four contributions are preceded by an “Executive Summary”, which gives a broad view of LAOG,
explains its structure, and summarizes the activities and projects of the teams in a synthetic fashion.
Several appendices give more details (see part VII):
- Appendix in chapter 17 gives some information about LAOG’s management structure;
- Appendix in chapter 18 describes the structure and activities of the Technical group;
- Appendix in chapter 19 lists the national and international science management and responsibilites of LAOG
members;
- Appendix in chapter 20 explains in detail the goals and activities of the “Centre Jean-Marie Mariotti” for
interferometry.
Finally, to help the reader identify what are precisely the scientific contributions of LAOG to a given topic
(as opposed to the work being conducted elsewhere on the same topic), we have resorted to a little typographic
trick when giving references in the text:
- LAOG references (i.e., comprizing at least one LAOG author) relevant to the current activity period (2002-
2005) are given in italics (Laog et al. 2004), and can be found in the list of “selected references” at the end of
each part, and/or in the general bibliography;
- LAOG references to older work are given also in italics, but in full (Laog et al. 2000, A&A, 360, 123);
- Non-LAOG references are given in roman, also in full (Nonlaog et al., 2000, A&A, 360, 234).
The Executive Summary part of this report has been prepared by Thierry Montmerle (Director) and Jean-
Louis Monin (Deputy-Director). The team parts have been prepared by the team leaders: Cecilia Ceccarelli,
François Ménard, Guy Pelletier, Christian Perrier and Pierre Kern (for the Technical group).
Grenoble, April 18, 2006
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