New WG Chairman's Message

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to you as the newly selected chair of the Organizing Committee (OC) for our Working Group (WG) on Active B-Stars, to update you on some recent activities, and also to summarize what I see as general issues facing our working group.

First, I wish to thank the former Chair Stan Stefl for his steady guidance and leadership of the OC over the past few years. StanS (the shorthand we use to distinguish him from me, "StanO") remains an OC member, and was also selected to chair the SOC for the next conference on Active B-Stars. StanS asked me to help on that SOC by acting as "co-chair", and so on his behalf I will first briefly comment on the status of the meeting planning.

I. Status of Plans for Next Meeting on Active B Stars

After failing to get adequate response from the local organizers of our originally intended venue of Chile, the SOC agreed in August 2003 to accept the kind invitation from Atsuo Okazaki to coordinate hosting of the meeting in Sapporo, Japan, with a target date of Aug. 28-Sep. 2, 2005. Last December, the SOC drafted a proposal ("Active OB-Stars: Laboratories for Stellar & Circumstellar Physics") for IAU support, originally framed as a "symposium", but later switched to "colloquium" upon feedback and recommendation from various sponsoring commissions. Unfortunately, early in June we received email notification from the IAU Assistant General Secretary Karel van der Hucht that IAU sponsorship was not approved. The only specific rationale cited was putative overlap with two other meetings (one of which also was not approved), but it seems perhaps more relevant to note that the colloquium competition was particularly difficult this year, with approval for only 3 out of 14 proposals. (6 of 10 symposia were approved.)

The many members of the OC and SOC who were present at the July workshop on disks in Tennesee met to discuss the situation. Because 2006 is an IAU General Assembly year, with little or no chance for sponsorship for a meeting not geographically close to the host venue in Prague, it was decided to consider possibilities to still hold the meeting in 2005 in Japan without IAU sponsorship. I am now pleased to announce that Atsuo has recently reported considerable success in obtaining core funding from Japanese sources, and so the intention is for the meeting to proceed. A formal announcement (now included in this volume - ed.) with further details on venue, registration, program, etc. should be forthcoming early this fall.

Independent of this conference, one item currently being discussed within the OC regards possible themes for a one-day or part-day Joint Discussion (JD) at the 2006 GA in Prague. Letters of intent to propose such a JD are due the first of the year. Suggestions for topics and theme are welcome.

II. Some Thoughts on Issues and Initiatives

I wish here also to briefly outline some thoughts on what I see as two key general challenges facing our WG.

1. Enhancing the profile, stature and reputation of our research areas, both within the broad astrophysics community, and in terms of public outreach.

2. Seeking and developing connections with other research communities.

To illustrate the first concern, I'd like to cite a direct quote from a reviewer of a research grant proposal I submitted a few years back:

"My difficulty with this proposal stems not from the proposed work..., but from the choice of subject matter. Further studies of classical Be stars, however interesting to a small group of astronomers, are unlikely to advance our understanding of larger issues in massive star formation or evolution, and have little or no applicability to the rest of astronomy. They constitute an interesting puzzle, but in an era of limited funding for individual investigator grants, I'm not convinced that this is where the community should put its resources."

Unfortunately, it seems this opinion, while stated here in particularly blunt terms, is not an isolated one. One way to counter it is to publicize better the many interesting developments in our field, such as was done in the recent PASP review article by John Porter and Thomas Rivinius (see PASP, 115, 1153). Perhaps this could be followed up by getting a more popular level article published in a magazine like Sky & Telescope.

But it seems particularly key to reverse this apparent perception that B/Be-star research has little overlap or relevance outside "a small group of astronomers". This leads to my second numbered issue, exploring connections with other areas of astrophysics, e.g. by holding joint meetings, and pushing joint initiatives. The recent Tennessee meeting organized by Rico Ignace and collaborators was an excellent example of the latter, as it brought together B-star researchers with others in the lower mass star formation community, under the common theme of having a circumstellar disk. And the just-completed Quebec meeting on "Massive Stars in Interacting Binaries" included some good discussion of Be X-ray binaries. Other themes for future could include pulsation, magnetic fields, and rotation. There have been meetings on all these in the past few years, but perhaps not quite with the emphasis on active B-stars that connects appropriately to our WG.

As some of you may know, I've taken a particular interest recently in the role of rapid rotation, so for me a key facet is to use Be stars as "laboratories" for understanding the causes and consequences of this within the broader range of massive star evolution. A particularly exciting possibility has been the realization in recent years that very massive stars like eta Carinae may be spun up to near critical rotation, and that this may naturally explain the bipolar form of the Homunculus nebula. A related new angle is the key role of rotation in the "collapsar" model of Gamma Ray Bursts. At the May meeting on "The Fate of the Most Massive Stars" in Jackson Hole, WY, a few of us B-star researchers did try to point out the connection, but were somewhat taken aback to realize that many key SN researchers working on rotating, collapsing core models of GRBs were hardly aware of the existence of Be stars! Though my membership on the OC for the IAU WG on Massive Stars, I have recently begun discussing with others (e.g. George Meyet and Jo Puls) ways to explore this connection though some joint initiatives between the two WGs.

My general point here is that through GRBs, and through the growing belief that the very First Stars were very massive (and possibly very rapidly rotating?), there is at least a strong potential to connect the research in our WG to themes of much broader interest. As a class, Be-stars are, after all, the most rapidly rotating of all (nondegenerate) stars. Even as we debate amongst ourselves the details of how close they are to critical, and what role this plays in wide and complex range of observed phenomena, shouldn't we also do more to tout them to outside fields as remarkable, extreme objects that really could represent ideal laboratories for studying such a key property of stellar physics and evolution?

I recognize that there are range of perspectives within our WG on the many other aspects of research on Active B-Stars that might have overlap. And so I encourage others to offer their ideas, and perhaps take the lead in further initiatives. Overall, success of such efforts depends largely on the involvement and further development by the members of the full WG. So in closing, I would ask you all to consider ways to address these issues. I certainly welcome feedback and suggestions, both on the broad challenges and on my specific remarks here.

Regards,
Stan Owocki, Chair
Organizing Committee of the IAU Working Group on Active B-Stars