Announcement

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Whether magnetic fields or turbulence play a critical role in the star formation processes has been one of the most important unresolved questions in star formation. Classical low mass star formation theory claims that ambipolar diffusion is essential to remove magnetic flux for gravitational collapse; however, many MHD simulations shows that molecular clouds can fragment and form stars under the influence of turbulence without much assistance from the magnetic fields. Since ALMA has started to offer us unprecedented sensitive polarization measurements, we may finally have data good enough to answer this question. On the other hand, more and more dust polarization observations at disk scales reveal that scattering cannot be ignored which would challenge the reliability of the magnetic field measurement but also could provide critical information on dust growths for the formation of planetesimals.

We hope that this conference offers an opportunity to facilitate the discussions on all aspects of star and planetary disk formation, such as

1. Magnetic field and turbulence measurements
2. Molecular cloud structure and dynamics
3. Formation of protoplanetary disks
4. Chemical contents of molecular cores and disks
5. Star formation efficiency

Sponsored by:

• Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan
• National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
• The Astronomical Society of the Republic of China, Taiwan
• University Consortium of ALMA-Taiwan/Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
• National Radio Astronomical Observatory, USA

Confirmed Invited Speakers

• Shantanu Basu (University of Western Ontario)
• Blakesley Burkhart (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
• Dick Crutcher (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
• Edith Falgarone (Paris Observatory)
• Laura Fissel (National Radio Astronomy Observatory)
• Chat Hull (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)
• Alex Lazarian (University of Wisconsin)
• Hua-Bai Li (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
• Zhi-Yun Li (University of Virginia)
• Hauyu Baobab Liu (European Southern Observatory)
• Susana Lizano (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)
• Anaelle Maury (Université Paris Saclay)
• Thushara Pillai (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy)
• Qizhou Zhang (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)