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IERS Message No. 56                                          March 15, 2004
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Call for Participation in the Project 'Descartes - Nutation'


Dear Colleagues,

As you probably know, the European partners in the WG on 'Nonrigid Earth
nutation theory' have been awarded with the Descartes Prize. The total
amount of money that we have received is 300000 Euros. The European
consortium has decided to use the money for studies devoted to the
understanding of the next decimal of precession/nutation, from the
theoretical point of view as well as from the observational point of view.

To that aim, we have created the Project 'Descartes - Nutation' in which
the following activities shall be carried out:

1. Sponsoring one or two international conferences with particular emphasis
on precession/nutation. These meetings will be held in the frame of IAG/IAU
sponsored conferences or meetings such as the Journees Systemes de
References. The Descartes Prize money should cover some of the
participants' expenses, if necessary.

2. Support the exchange of PhD students or Post-docs (not older than 38
years), within the project in order to address questions and find solutions
in the frame of the subjects given at the end of this text.

3. A limited part of the available money could also be allocated for
exceptional travel grants for scientists of the WG.

This email is a Call for Participation. The European consortium has decided
to open this call to the international community. We would like to get
applications either from a host institution willing to accept a visiting
young scientist or from a candidate who wants to go abroad. The ideas of
the proposals should fit to the objectives of the Project 'Descartes -
Nutation' as stated above. The proposals should describe the research in
one or two pages and should be sent to me electronically (v.dehant@oma.be).
Due to the limited amount of money available, the exchange of PhD students
or Post-docs should be limited to 6 months or for a very few of them to one
year.

If the application is from a host institution willing to accept a visiting 
young scientist it should contain:
- the name of the supervisor who is responsible for the plan of research,
- the planned work of the team, and in particular of the new PhD student or
Post-doc,
- the objectives and the scope of research,
- the means and facilities offered by a host institution and the means
needed from the project,
- the scientist(s) needed, mentioning if the host prefers PhD or post-doc,
- optionally, the name(s) of the visitor. If the name is not given, the
selection can be done after acceptance of the project.

If the application is from a candidate who wants to go abroad it should
contain:
- the CV of the candidate, including list of the most important
publications,
- the opinion from his research supervisor,
- the objectives and the scope of present and future research,
- the funding needed for going abroad,
- optionally, the invitation of the hosting institution. If not given, the
candidate can be put in a list for a further selection.

The deadline for submission is 10th of April, 2004.

The European consortium has settled a small sub-group (the so-called
Advisory Board) that will be in charge of reviewing the applications and
make proposals to the consortium. The decisions will be taken according to
the quality of the proposals and the available money, and will be shared
with the whole working group involved in the Descartes prize. We want the
administration to be totally transparent. If for any reason you need some
confidentiality, please mention it explicitly.

We also plan to organize a summer school as soon as possible for helping
the PhD and Post-doc students. A kickoff meeting for our new project is
foreseen at the next Journees Systemes de Reference in Paris, 20-23
September.

If your name is not listed below and if you want to participate in the work
of the WG 'Descartes - Nutation', please do not hesitate to contact me. If
your name is listed but you don't want to participate any more in our
discussion, please mention it to me as well.

Please forward this information to any colleague or institution which might
be interested.

Hoping to receive news from you before April first 2004,
Veronique Dehant


Here are the areas where we have identified weaknesses and where proposals
should be established.

Level 1: transfer function for nutation
1. Topographic coupling, electromagnetic and viscous coupling
2. Gravitational coupling involving lateral heterogeneities
3. Second order coupling

Level 2: luni-solar and planetary forcing
1. Coupling effects should be revisited (includes Earth rotation/nutation
and global Hamiltonian approach)
2. Global approach (transfer function and forcing, Hamiltonian approach)
3. Dynamical flattening
4. Parameters used in nutation expression
5. Relativistic corrections

Level 3: geophysical fluids
1. Diurnal ocean tides
2. Atmosphere at diurnal timescale
3. Ocean response to atmosphere, at diurnal timescale
4. Hydrosphere at diurnal timescale
5. Mass conservation problem
6. GGFC formatting problem

Level 4: Free modes
1. FCN
2. FICN
3. Other modes, such as inertial core modes

Level 5: Nutation observation
1. VLBI
2. GPS/Galileo
3. Combination


Members of the EU proposal Nutation:
1. Dehant V., Defraigne P., de Viron O., Roosbeek F., Van Hoolst T.
2. Arias F.
3. Capitaine N., Bizouard Ch., Gambis D., Souchay J., Feissel-Vernier M.
4. Bretagnon P. (deceased in 2002), Moisson X., Simon J.L.
5. Brzezinski A.
6. Getino J.
7. Ferrandiz J.M., Navarro J., Escapa A.
8. Folgueira M.
9. Klioner S., Soffel M.
10. Rothacher M.
11. Zhu S.Y.
12. Schuh H., Weber R.
13. Vondrak J.
14. Yatskiv Y.
15. Zharov V.

1= Royal Observatory of Belgium
2= Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, Paris
3= Observatoire de Paris
4= Institut de Mecanique Celeste et de Calcul des Ephemerides
5= Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
6= University of Valladolid
7= University of Alicante
8= Complutense University of Madrid
9= University of Dresden
10= Technical University of Munich
11= GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam
12= Technical University Vienna
13= Astronomical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
14= Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of
Ukraine
15= Sternberg State Astronomical Institute, Moscow


Members of the Advisory Board of the EU proposal Descartes-Nutation:
V. Dehant (Chair), ORB, Belgium;
A. Brzezinski, SRC PAS, Poland;
N. Capitaine, Paris Observatory, France;
H. Schuh, TU Vienna, Austria;
J. Getino, University of Valladolid, Spain.


The "extended" WG incorporates presently:
Bruyninx C. (ROB)
Buffett B. (Canada)
Chao B. (Goddard Space Flight Center)
Dickey J. (US JPL)
Farto J.M. (Spain)
Fernandez L. (Argentina)
Fukushima T. (Japan)
Garrosa A.G (Spain)
Gontier A.-M. (Obs Paris)
Gonzalez A.B. (Spain)
Greff-Lefftz M. (IPG Paris)
Greiner-Mai H. (Germany) 
Gross R. (US JPL)
Guo Junyi (China)
Herring T. (US MIT)
Hinderer J. (EOPG Strasbourg, presently at GSFC)
Huang Chengli (China)
Kinoshita H. (Japan)
Kuang W. (Goddard Space Flight Center)
Lambert S. (Obs Paris)
Legros H. (EOPG Strasbourg)
Ma C.  (Goddard Space Flight Center)
Martin P. (Spain)
Mathews S. (India)
McCarthy D. (US Naval Obs)
Molodenski S. (Russia)
Nastula Y. (Poland)
Ponte R. (US AER)
Ray J. (USGN, presently at BIPM)
Richter B. (BKG)
Salstein D. (US AER)
Sasao T. (Japan)
Seitz F. (Germany)
Standish M. (US JPL)
Wahr J. (US Colorado Univ)
Wallace P. (UK)
Williams J. (US JPL)
Wilson C. (US Texas Univ)


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