Overview

The 2nd Rencontres du Vietnam on Exoplanetary Science
from February 25 to March 2, 2018
Quy Nhon, Vietnam

The Rencontres du Vietnam, which is an official partner of UNESCO, has organized since 1993 international scientific conferences and schools to promote exchanges, interactions and collaborations between Asia-Pacific scientists and colleagues from other parts of the world.

The International Center for Interdisciplinary Science Education (ICISE) in the city of Quy Nhon (Central Vietnam) has the objective to focus on developing science and education, helping Asian students and scientists to meet with the international science community, bringing the opportunity to accelerate their knowledge from attending lectures and sharing ideas with overseas high-level counterparts.

The Rencontres du Vietnam initiated in 2014 a cycle of yearly conferences on planetary science, alternatively focusing on exoplanets, Solar system, or exobiology. In this framework, the ICISE conference center will host the 2nd Rencontres du Vietnam on Exoplanetary Science from February 25 to March 2, 2018.

Exoplanetology has experienced extraordinary developments, and is now a mature and particularly dynamic research field of astrophysics. It aims at exploring the Universe and its diversities, as well as constraining the formation and evolution models of planetary systems. On long timescales, it also provides elements toward the potential detection of extraterrestrial life. The various detection techniques such as radial velocities, transit, microlensing, direct imaging, timing or astrometry, provided thousands of planet detections. Numerous additional ones are expected in the coming years, over an increasing explored parameter space. The characterization of these systems has also improved, and now reaches the details of the orbital parameters or the physics and chemistry of planetary atmospheres. Together with the observations, theoretical studies of exoplanets have also undergone huge improvements. Numerous teams in the world are developing models and simulations, for example to reproduce the physical processes driving the formation of planets in circumstellar discs, the evolution of their orbits through migration or mutual interaction, or the properties of their atmospheres.

Over five days, the conference will offer a fruitful meeting of observers involved in various ground- and space-based programs with modelers and theoreticians, in order to raise new observations and new models to improve our comprehension and knowledges of exoplanets. The conference will consist of plenary sessions for oral presentations, including review talks and contributions on more specialized topics, as well as specialized posters. Short parallel, focused sessions could also be organized if needed. The conference will be preceded by a two-day international school for students involved in those topics, with instructors and teachers chosen among the conference participants.

All sessions will take place at the ICISE conference center , in the university town of Quy Nhon, Vietnam. Meals are served in the center to all participants, in order to enhance interaction between scientists at all levels. Participation is limited to 150 persons.

That colloquium will celebrate the 25 years of the Rencontres du Vietnam.

The website of the first Rencontres du Vietnam on Exoplanetary Science, which took place in Quy Nhon in 2014, is available here: http://vietnam.in2p3.fr/2014/exo

Scientific Organisation Committee:
Eiji Akiyama (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Japan)
Michael Albrow (University of Canterbury, NZ)
Isabelle Baraffe (University of Exeter, UK)
Andrew Collier-Cameron (University of St Andrews, UK)
Rodrigo Díaz (Buenos Aires University, Argentina)
René Doyon (Université de Montréal, Canada)
Diana Dragomir (MIT Kavli Institute, USA)
Roger Ferlet (Institut d’astrophysique de Paris, France)
Guillaume Hébrard (Institut d’astrophysique de Paris, France), chair
Tobias C. Hinse (Korea Astronomy & Space Science Institute, South Korea)
Jacques Laskar (Observatoire de Paris, France)
Alain Lecavelier des Étangs (Institut d’astrophysique de Paris, France)
Doug Lin (University of California, USA)
Jack Lissauer (NASA Ames Research Center, USA)
Michel Mayor (Geneva, Switzerland)
Rosemary Mardling (Monash University, Australia)
Claire Moutou (Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, USA)
Norio Narita (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Heike Rauer (Institute for Planetary Research, Germany)
Sujan Sengupta (Indian Institute of Astrophysics, India)
Feng Tian (Tsinghua University, Beijing, China)
Jean Tran Thanh Van (ICISE, Viet Nam)