Overview

The 656th WE-Heraeus-Seminar on "Fundamental Physics in Space" is kindly funded by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation and will be held October 23 - 27, 2017 in Bremen, Germany. With a lot of university based space research, a number of space institutes and large space industry, Bremen is one major space location in Europe.

At the moment there are comparably many fundamental physics space mission under way. LISA Pathfinder workes perfectly and the mission will terminate in a few weeks, MICROSCOPE is at the moment testing the Equivalence Principle in space and the first data have already been analyzed, since 2011 LARES is taking data in order to obtain in a few years an improved confirmation of the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect, at the beginning of this year MAIUS made the first Bose-Einstein condensate in space, QUESS established the entanglement between quantum systems in space and on ground, the reading of the clocks of Galileo 5 and 6 are presently analyzed for performing a new test of the gravitational redshift, high precision clocks of ACES/PHARAO will be brought to the ISS for fundamental pyhsics and technology tests, and GRACE Follow On is also planned to be launched next year for measuring the gravitational field of the Earth to be used for geodesy but potentially also for fundamental tests.

Due to these activities it seems to be appropriate and timely to give an overall status report of Fundamental Physics in Space, to discuss and assess present science questions and whether it is of use that they might be tested in space, and to discuss newly developed space technologies. We will also highlight space based Earth observation, geodesy, and positioning. Accordingly, in our seminar we will treat

  • past and present fundamental physics missions and missions under development
  • the big science questions
  • the advantage of space conditions
  • new developments in space technology
  • proposals for new Fundamental Physics missions

The program consists of invited as well as contributed talks and posters. We particularly encourage female scientist to contribute to the seminar. For young scientists we will award the best poster with a price

The number of participants is limited to about 90. The registration deadline is August 31st, 2017.