THE RIO BRICS ASTRONOMY WORKSHOP AND WORKING GROUP MEETINGS

THE RIO BRICS ASTRONOMY Workshop and Working Group Meetings

Laying the foundation for a BRICS Telescope Network

• BY ULISSES BARRES DE ALMEIDA - BRAZILIAN CENTER FOR PHYSICS RESEARCH

BRUNO VAZ CASTILHO - NATIONAL LABORATORY OF ASTROPHYSICS

CARLOS ALEXANDRE WUENSCHE - NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SPACE RESEARCH

he 2019 Rio BRICS Astronomy Workshop and Working Group Meetings (BAWG) marked the fifth edition of the BAWG series, which happens annually since 2015. It was the first edition in Brazil, taking place between September 29th and October 2nd, at the Brazilian Center for Physics Research (CBPF), and consisted of a two-day science workshop, followed by the BAWG meeting of BRICS delegates.

The event was chaired by the National Laboratory of Astrophysics (LNA), contact point for the Brazilian delegation at BAWG.

The workshop has demonstrated the status of maturity of the BRICS collaboration on astrophysics and the role and impact that these countries together can have on world science. In his welcoming address, the director of CBPF, Dr.Ronald Shellard, conveyed his recognition of the crucial role to be played by BRICS multilateral cooperation in physics and astrophysics, unique among the multiple avenues of global collaboration in these strongly internationalized fields of science. The opening address was given by Mr. Takalani Nemaungani, chair to the BRICS Astronomy Working Group, who reminded participants of the steps that led to the preparation of the flagship proposals by the participating scientists. The final goal of the Rio Meeting was to achieve a unified flagship project to be jointly pursued by the BAWG. Over the years, the five countries have continually engaged to establish a solid, multi-lateral cooperation agenda in astronomy, one of the thematic areas chosen as priority for BRICS cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI).

BRUNO VAZ CASTILHO

CARLOS ALEXANDRE WUENSCHE

Behind this is the recognition that Astronomy, as an area of scientific research constantly at the forefront of technological development and innovation, holds a great potential of societal impact, including in human capacity building.

Being an inherently multinational field, Astronomy is a most natural avenue for fostering international cooperation, supported by one of the bestintegrated global research communities amongst all sciences.

Numerous are the international projects in Astronomy in which two or more BRICS countries already cooperate, and we could cite the Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO) as a prime example, where China, India and South Africa collaborate with 12 other countries to build the largest and most powerful radio observatory in history. The vast global coverage of the BRICS countries, geographically spread across the full range of latitudes and longitudes, and enclosing an enormous land area, make them particularly well-suited astronomical partners.

Together they can achieve a continuous observational capability of the entire sky, for the surveying and monitoring of all kinds of celestial phenomena. Likewise, their diversity makes up for limitless options of suitable astronomical sites in which to install instrumentation, without the need to look The BRICS countries would therefore be uniquely placed to construct a world-class network of astronomical observatories, capable of establishing itself among the principal global facilities in terms of observing power and scientific discovery potential. Operating as a single observatory with sites spread over the five countries, thanks to software-level integration of operations and data products, the network could become a stable infrastructure for fostering permanent cooperation, innovation and training within the Bloc, in a context of breakthrough science, and with direct impact in strategic areas such as computing and engineering.

Such was the rationale behind the organization of the 2019 Rio BRICS Astronomy Workshop, whose scientific discussions centered around the topic of multiwavelength and multi-messenger astronomy.

This is a leading and rapidly expanding topic in contemporary Astrophysics research, and one which demands unique astronomical infrastructures with great surveying and monitoring capability of the entire sky, such as a BRICS-wide telescope network could provide. Research in this area is motivated by some of the most important discoveries of the last decade, such as the detection of gravitational waves and very-high-energy cosmic neutrinos , and holds the key to the study of the most energetic and violent astrophysical phenomena, crucial to the understanding of the evolution and constituents of the Universe.

The two-day workshop featured around 20 presentations by researchers from the four countries present (India attended in remote format), which showcased the various aspects of multiwavelength and multi-messenger research in which the different teams are involved. Several talks also focused on presenting the current and planned astronomical infrastructure and observatory facilities from the various countries. The principal aim was to discuss and set out a strategy to promote integration and multilateral collaboration among the BRICS countries, and the contributions served as a basis for the discussions that followed, on the potential for the establishment of a BRICS-wide optical telescope network for the continuous monitoring and surveying of the entire sky.

This network should be built with the use of existing facilities, through integration of the telescope operations and resulting datasets. By bringing together the scientific communities and the available observational and data infrastructures from the five countries, the group will establish novel research collaborations and projects at the frontier of knowledge. This first phase will effectively work as a pathfinder for the

“Astronomy, as an area of scientific research constantly at the forefront of technological development and innovation, holds a great potential of societal impact, including in human capacity building. ”

following step, that is, the building and deployment of dedicated instrumentation, tailor-made to compose a unique global network of optical telescopes fully operated by the BRICS.

Thanks to its strong links to aspects of high-performance computing and data science, both at the core of the fourth Industrial Revolution, the project is also expected to have important impact beyond the fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics, with positive consequences for technological development, innovation and education in the participating countries. The Rio Meeting served to consolidate towards such a unified proposal the several years of preparations and growing collaboration that was promoted by the BRICS Astronomy Working Group.

The ensuing meeting of the BRICS delegates present in Rio formally approved the proposal for a Flagship Project to build the BRICS Intelligent Telescope and Data Network (BITDN) . The project is to be led by Dr. David Buckley, from South Africa, with the contribution of co-PIs from each BRICS country. It was finally presented to the BRICS STI Framework Programme last year. To highlight and advertise the progress in coordinated multi-lateral collaboration that the past five years of BAWG activities have succeeded to promote among the BRICS countries, and to firmly document the proposal and the science behind BITDN, the scientific contributions and discussions from the Rio Meeting were collected in a special volume published in the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences . It constitutes the first-ever scientific volume exclusively dedicated to BRICS Astronomy. The publication, which is fully open-access, aims to remain as a reference of the scientific activities within the BRICS Astronomy Working Group, and presents a unique and wide perspective into the current status of BRICS activities in astronomy and of the existing multi-lateral cooperation in the field. We hope it will further promote and contribute to the general understanding of the potential of BRICS STI cooperation in this area. In our vision as organizers, the workshop has fulfilled its objectives, contributing to strengthening the relationships between the BRICS and their scientific communities. We hope that the steps taken until now will open doors for further fruitful collaborations among the BRICS, not only in Astronomy, but also in other fields of research, exploiting the numerous potential synergies of the Bloc.

The BRICS countries constitute a widely heterogeneous ensemble of countries, with unique historical backgrounds, and inserted in particular geopolitical contexts across the world. Nevetheless, they form a congruent set with respect to the common challenges they face as emerging economies and their potential to grow into leading regional and global powers. The setting of joint and ambitious goals in STI, especially through stable, multi-disciplinary and widescope decentralized research infrastructures such as the BITDN, provide the ideal framework for long-term and effective scientific and technological cooperation, that reverts into further strengthening of our ties, and mutually-beneficial development for the decades ahead.