The purpose of this message is to bring to your attention a 2-week 

workshop on

We would be happy for you to bring this workshop to the attention of 

your colleagues as well. 

Aspen workshops are meant to be informal, with relatively few scheduled 

talks and most of the time left for individual or group discussions, informal 

chats, and work.

The aims of the workshop are to overview recent SN distance measurements 

from on-going surveys at both low and high redshift, to critically examine the 

progress that has been made in quantifying the systematics of SN distance 

indicators, and to assess the prospects and pathways for improved control 

of systematics in the near and long terms. In the process, we will aim to 

comparatively assess different methods of SN light-curve analysis and 

explore methods that may prove optimal and/or robust for the future. We  

hope to foster dialogue between SN observers and modelers with the goal of 

assessing how theory can inform SN distance measurements and systematics 

analysis. Since future wide-area surveys will discover much larger numbers of 

supernovae than can be followed up spectroscopically, there is considerable

interest in exploring the possibilities for SN distance measurements based on 

purely photometric information, a topic we also plan to discuss. 

Finally, we hope the workshop will provide cosmology theorists with 

a more nuanced appreciation for the subtleties and challenges involved in 

producing reliable SN distance estimates to probe cosmological parameters. 

Applications for the Aspen summer workshops must be filled out on-line by 

http://www.aspenphys.org/

Since participation in the Center is oversubscribed, an admissions committee 

considers the applications; notifications of acceptance will likely be sent out 

in March. We note that a workshop on ``Implications of Swift's Discoveries about 

GRBs'' will be held June 4-17; participation in both workshops is possible and 

encouraged for those interested. Since the ACP strongly encourages the kinds 

of informal and sustained interactions not possible in a typical short conference, 

theorists are encouraged to be in residence at Aspen for 3+ weeks, although 

2 weeks is acceptable. Experimentalists/observers are also encouraged to 

spend ample time at the Center, though stays of as little as one week are 

allowed for them. 

We hope to see you in Aspen this summer.

best regards,

Josh Frieman

Wendy Freedman

Alexei Khokhlov