From December 23 to 26, the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS) will host the International Conference "High energy astrophysics today and tomorrow (HEA-24)". This conference continues the tradition of annual conferences organized by the High energy astrophysics department at IKI RAS since 2001 (see archived pages).

The current year, 2024, is special both for the Russian Academy of Sciences, which celebrates its 300th anniversary, and for the Department of High Energy Astrophysics of IKI RAS, which was founded exactly 50 years ago.

The Department of High Energy Astrophysics was founded in 1974 and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. During this time, the staff of the Department has implemented four projects of orbital astrophysical observatories - “Roentgen” on the KVANT module of the MIR station (1987-2001), “Granat” (1989-1998), INTEGRAL (2002 - present), Spectr-RG (2019 - present), published thousands of articles featuring world-class scientific research results.

In 1989, 35 years ago, the X-ray observatory “Granat” was launched into orbit. Scientific results obtained with its instruments contributed greatly to the modern astrophysics.

In July, we celebrated 5 years of successful orbital operation of the Spektr-RG observatory. Data from the observatory made possible the construction of unique X-ray maps of the whole sky in which several millions of X-ray sources have been detected, including numerous active galactic nuclei, distant quasars, tidal disruption events, neutron stars, black holes, etc. The observatory continues its work, sending invaluable scientific data back to Earth every day.

This year also marks the anniversary of:

• 110 years since the birth of the Academician Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich, one of the most prominent physicists of the 20th century, an outstanding specialist in the field of nuclear physics, astrophysics and cosmology, founder of the Department of High Energy Astrophysics of IKI RAS;
• 65 years since the birth of Mikhail Nikolaevich Pavlinsky, Head of the Department of High Energy Astrophysics and Deputy Director of IKI RAS. His creation - ART-XC, the first Russian X-ray telescope with grazing incidence mirrors, continues its work on board the Spektr-RG observatory;
• 50 years since the birth of Mikhail Gennadievich Revnivtsev, head of the laboratory at IKI RAS, a world-renowned scientist in the field of high-energy astrophysics, who put forward the idea of the MVN (“Monitor of the Whole Sky”) experiment to measure the cosmic X-ray background with high accuracy. The instrument is expected to be installed on the ISS in December 2024.

As usual, the conference will cover a wide range of topics, including the most relevant results from current space and ground-based observatories, along with updates on future missions and their scientific objectives.

The main topics of the conference are:

The emphasis will be on the results of the Spektr-RG observatory. The conference program will also contain reviews of the results of other modern astrophysical observatories in operation, such as IXPE, HXMT-Insight, Einstein Probe, etc., as well as ground-based telescopes. Reports on future projects, both from Russia (MVN, Spektr-UV, Spektr-M) and other countries, will also be presented.

The conference program will be defined by topical reviews presented by the invited speakers - leading experts in astrophysics and cosmology. Considerable time will be allocated for the oral presentations on the results of both experimental and theoretical research. In addition to talks and invited reviews, there will be a significant number of poster presentations, which will be exhibited at IKI RAS during the conference and posted on the conference website after the conference, if participants provide materials in digital format.