Oct. 3, 2008, 2pm EDT

Present: Bennett, Hanany, Kogut, Page, Meyer, Miller, Smith, Timbie

• Discussion of nominations of members to the technical panels of the Decadal Survey. Decision: Shaul will coordinate nominations of members of the PPPDT to serve on the panels.

• Bennett reports on the expected process of the panel. It is likely to quickly converge on the major science questions. The technical challenges and practicality of implementation will take longer.

• Discussion of representation of CMB science in April meeting of the APS in 2009. The Division of Astrophysics solicited suggestions for plenary talks and dedicated sessions. Shaul sent a proposal to Mike Turner/ Steve Kahn (see below). Turner relayed information (through Steve Meyer) that they are thinking of a session that will include review of several astrophysics mission that are of interest to the physicists. CMBPol is one of them. There is a proposal on the table that in such a session Steve will represent CMBPol.

• Discussion about the option of either a special session at the June meeting of the AAS, or doing a meeting in a meeting. The prevailing opinion is that we should not advocate for more than one special session/year because we are not likely to get it and that the winter meeting is better attended. Also, the meeting-within-a-meeting is not quite appropriate for reaching people outside of our community.

Dear Mike and Steve,

I am writing on behalf of the Primordial Polarization Program Definition Team, a NASA appointed committee that I chair, which represents the CMB community. (The entire committee is listed at http://pppdt.physics.umn.edu/)

We propose a plenary talk and an invited session dedicated to Inflationary Cosmology and to the prospects for measuring it using CMB Polarization, respectively.

Let me make these suggestions more concrete.

Matias Zaldarriaga (Harvard) or Marc Kamionkowski (CalTech) would be excellent plenary speakers for a talk about 'Probing Models of Inflation', or simply 'Inflationary Cosmology'.

An Invited Session could be titled: 'Science from the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation' and could have the following speakers and talk titles: (1) Dodelson (Fermilab) - 'What we can learn from the polarization at the millimeter wavelengths' (2) Hinshaw (Goddard) (or Joanna Dunkley (Oxford)) - 'Results from WMAP and from sub-orbital experiments, and expectations from PLANCK' (3) Bock (JPL/CalTech) - 'CMBPol - a future satellite designed to probe Inflation and rich galactic polarization science'

Although the first talk appears to overlap with the plenary presentation, a polarization map at CMB wavelengths will provide rich cosmological and galactic information that goes beyond inflation. It is the task of this talk to cover these topics.

With the exception of Kamionkowski and Dunkley, with whom I didn't have a chance to communicate, all others have expressed interest in participating.

Let me know if you need any other help in organizing these talks. We look forward to a strong participation of the CMB community in the meeting.

Best regards,

Shaul