Workshop Overview:
This one-week workshop was a forum to explore new concepts that enable major scientific advances at modest cost in the far-IR / submm spectral range. Far-IR astronomy is typically driven toward expensive, flagship-class missions, primarily because optimal sensitivity requires a large cold collecting area in space and novel detector approaches. This workshop looked for opportunities to make new break-through measurements without flagship-class budgets. The participants generated a list of promising concepts and ideas, and key questions for further study. Their detailed assessment is beyond the scope of the workshop but they could be pursued afterward with analysis, modeling, and engineering studies. While some ideas may prove impractical until new technology is available, others might evolve into near-term mission and instrument designs.
Sessions were organized for science motivation and wish-lists, break-out sessions for innovation areas (e.g. cooling, optics, architecture), for coordination and integration of break-outs, and for summary and distillation.
The intent was to be completely unconstrained in brainstorming, except, of course, by the laws of physics.