Final Announcement

BARRED GALAXIES - IAU Colloquium No. 157

Bryant Conference Center, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Dates: 30 May - 3 June, 1995

This announcement contains information on registration and other costs, hotel accomodations, and traveling to the meeting, as well as access to meeting and hotel registration forms. A Postscript version of the meeting program is now ready. It is also available tex format and as a simple WWW readable form.

This Colloquium is intended to be a forum for discussing the status of our understanding of barred galaxies. Bars and related ovals represent the most important kinds of internal nonaxisymmetric perturbations seen in normal galaxies, and the importance of their effect on the structure and evolution of galaxies is becoming increasingly apparent. The meeting will focus on the most recent observational and theoretical work on the formation, evolution, and three-dimensional structure of bars and also the evidence for secular evolution of the gas and stellar distributions. The meeting should provide an excellent opportunity for theorists and observers to get together and set new directions for research on galactic structure.

Topics Include: Bar properties versus Hubble type -- Morphology -- Bulge and disk properties -- Oval distortions -- Ring and lens formation -- Statistical properties -- Bar-disk-spheroid interactions -- Counter-rotating phenomena -- Asymmetric barred galaxies -- Global rotational properties -- Pattern speeds -- Orbit resonances -- Orbits and 3D stellar dynamics -- Role of chaos -- Bars and boxy bulges -- Secondary bars and triaxial bulges -- Bar formation and destruction -- Role of external interactions -- Shocks and gas dynamics -- Molecular gas -- Global star formation -- Abundance characteristics -- Starbursts and infrared emission -- AGN connections -- HST observations -- Dark matter in barred galaxies -- The bar of the Galaxy -- Observations and dynamical models of individual objects -- Clusters and barred galaxies -- Secular evolution of structures

Location: Tuscaloosa is a city of 85,000 people in western Alabama. It is named after an Indian Chief, and has been the home of the University of Alabama since 1831. In the 1860's, discipline at the University was lax, and it was made into a military school. This made it a target for destruction in 1865, when Union troops burned the University at the end of the Civil War. In the 1960's, the area around Tuscaloosa, including Birmingham and Montgomery, was a focal point of the US civil rights movement.

Meeting Format: The meeting will revolve around various invited reviews and talks. There will be time for a limited number of additional oral contributions and ample space for poster presentations.

Preliminary List of Confirmed Speakers: E. Athanassoula, A. Bosma, A. Chernin, F. Combes, G. Contopoulos, B. Elmegreen, D. Elmegreen, K. C. Freeman, D. Friedli, S. Gottesman, L. Ho, J. Kenney, R. H. Miller, M. Merrifield, M. Noguchi, S. Odewahn, D. Pfenniger, V. Polyachenko, A. Quillen, J.R. Roy, J. Sellwood, P. Teuben, J. Turner, A. Zasov

Scientific Organizing Committee: E. Athanassoula (Marseille, France), F. Combes (Paris Obs., France), G. de Vaucouleurs (Univ. Texas, USA), B. Elmegreen (IBM Watson, USA), D. Elmegreen (Vassar College, USA), J. Kormendy (USA), D. Pfenniger (Geneva Obs., Switzerland), H. Salo (Univ. Oulu, Finland), J. Turner (UCLA, USA), A. Zasov (Russia), R. Buta (Univ. Alabama, USA and SOC Chairman)

Local Organizing Committee: G. Byrd, D. Crocker, S. Ryder, R. Buta

Meeting Proceedings: The proceedings will be edited by R. Buta, B. G. Elmegreen, and D. A. Crocker and will be published in the ASP conference series.

Contact address for further information: R. Buta, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Box 870324, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0324, USA; Internet address: buta@sarah.astr.ua.edu; Phone: +1 (205) 348-3792; Fax: +1 (205) 348-5051

Registration

Registration Fee: - The registration fee for the meeting will be $US 160 if received by March 31, and $185 if received after March 31. Included in the registration fee are the cost of morning continental breakfasts, all lunches, and the conference proceedings.

Special Events: There will be a special reception with refreshments on Tuesday, May 30, for meeting attendees and guests which will be held in the Exhibit Hall of the Alabama Museum of Natural History, located in historic Smith Hall on the University of Alabama campus. An outdoor barbeque at Moundville State Park will be held on Thursday, June 1. Moundville is an archeological site and museum which chronicles a pre-historic Indian civilization that once lived on the site. It is located 12 miles from Tuscaloosa. The meeting banquet will be held on Friday, June 2, in the old Tuscaloosa Governor's Mansion, a beautiful house built in 1834 when Tuscaloosa was the state capital. The menu will feature chicken Cordon Bleu and will include five vegetable options in buffet style.

Online registration forms: All the information given here, as well as the address for submission of your registration is included in the formal meeting registration material. You may download a registration form in two ways. A TeX copy of the form and registration material from which you may produce hardcopy with plain TeX and then mail or fax back to us. If you have an external viewer such as Ghostview or Pageview you may get the Postscript copy of the form directly. There is also a Postscript copy of the hotel registration form which you may download. If you would like to get the forms at a later time via anonymous FTP connect to crux.astr.ua.edu and go to the directory astro-stuff/meetings/iau157.

Cancellation Policy: Requests for cancellation must be received by April 30, 1995 in order to get a full refund of registration fees. Registrants who cancel after that date but before the meeting will also be entitled to a refund, less a $25.00 processing charge. Registrants who do not appear at the meeting, and thus cancel by default, are not eligible for a refund. Banquet and barbeque fees are not refundable.

Travel assistance: - Very limited funds for travel assistance are available through the SOC and the IAU. If you require some assistance, please specify in a message how much is required, and also send an abstract of your presentation showing how your topic connects to the meeting goals. Realize, however, that it will not be possible to honor all requests for assistance. The deadline for requests is March 1, 1995.

Lodging

Lodging Information: - A block of rooms has been reserved until April 30, 1995 at a special rate for program attendees at the Sheration Capstone Inn, adjacent to the Bryant Conference Center. Rooms may be reserved by calling (205) 752-3200 or by using the accompanying reservation form. If you use the reservation form, you may return it directly to the hotel. Please identify yourself as a program participant when making reservations. This will ensure that you receive the group rate of $US 75 for a single or a double room.

Travel to Tuscaloosa

By Car: Tuscaloosa can be reached by car via Interstate 20/59 from the west or east, or via interstate 65 onto I20/59 through Birmingham from the north or south. If you are driving from the direction of Atlanta, be sure to take the bypass, interstate 459, south of Birmingham, and then connect to 20/59 after driving some 20 miles. Stay on 20/59 south until you reach Exit 73 (MacFarland Blvd exit). Turn right off the exit ramp onto MacFarland Blvd. Stay on this road approximately 3 miles until you reach the University Blvd exit. Take this exit and turn right on University Blvd and immediately move to the left lane. The second stoplight is where Paul Bryant Drive will fork to the left off of University Blvd. Go to the left onto Bryant Drive for about 1/2 mile. The Sheraton Capstone Inn will be on the right, 1 block before the corner of Bryant Drive and Hackberry Lane (the next stop light).

Car Rental: Birmingham Airport offers a wide selection of car rentals. Rates vary depending on days of rental and car size. Car rental reservations may be made through All Seasons Travel at 1-800-343-5384. To get to the Sheraton Capstone Inn from the Birmingham Airport by car, leave the airport area and continue about 1 mile. Take the Tuscaloosa exit onto Interstate 20/59 and stay on this interstate until you reach exit 73. Then follow instructions as above.

By Air: Although Tuscaloosa has an airport, it is currently being served only by American Eagle commuter jets. Because of the small size of these planes, it is recommended that you book your flights as early as possible. An alternative is to fly into Birmingham, whose airport is 62 miles ($\approx$ 1 hour's drive) to the northeast of Tuscaloosa on Interstate 20/59.

Under a group contract with American Airlines, discounted airfares are available to conference participants originating within the 48 contiguous United States, Hawaii, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Bermuda, and the Bahamas to either Tuscaloosa or Birmingham, Alabama. Please be aware that Saturday night stay-over fares are much lower than straight coach fares. Assistance in finding the best coach fares for our international visitors is also offered. To obtain additional information and for reservations, you may contact Rita Bennett of All Seasons Travel at 1-800-343-5384 and specify the conference name: ``University of Alabama, Barred Galaxies.''

American Eagle jets fly into Tuscaloosa from a Nashville hub. Connections can be made with American Airlines to and from many destinations. Birmingham is serviced by American, Delta, Northwest, USAir, United, Southwest, TWA, American Eagle, and Commair. Another option is to fly into Atlanta. However, the Atlanta airport is about 200 miles from Tuscaloosa and a rental car would be essential.

Special Conference Shuttle: - The Sheraton Capstone Inn operates a shuttle service from the Tuscaloosa airport to the Inn. However, there is no regularly-scheduled commercial shuttle service from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa. Therefore, the meeting will have a special Conference Shuttle that will transport attendees who fly into Birmingham. In order that the schedule of this shuttle service will be of maximum efficiency, it is imperative that attendees provide their arrival times and make specific reservations.

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