Golden Era of Cataclysmic Variables and Related Objects II : Concluding Remarks

The cataclysmic variables continue to represent important part of modern astrophysics, as demonstrated, already second time, by the productive and successful conference Golden Era of Cataclysmic Variables and Related Objects II held on Mondello (Palermo) in September 2013.


Introduction
Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) belong to important targets of modern (and multispectral) astrophysics, as they represent in many aspects the true astrophysical laboratory, in which various physical processes and models can be observed, investigated, simulated, and tested.They even may play a significant role in the generation of galactic X-ray background, a consequence of surprisingly large fraction of CVs in hard X-ray sources detected by ESA satellite INTEGRAL.Despite of large theoretical and experimental progress in the last years there are still numerous important questions to be answered.Even for well known and studied objects such as SS Cyg or AE Aqr, there are still different opinions in the astronomical community about their nature and involved physical processes.The CV field is quite complex and interdisciplinary, and it is obvious that only such complex approach has a chance to deliver reliable answers to our questions.
Many important questions regarding investigation of CVs and related objects were addressed in Mondello, not only during scientific sessions, but also during numerous discussions among participants (see Figs. 2 to 11).There were plenty opportunities for such discussions during coffee breaks, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and also during various social activities, all this enjoying the pleasant atmosphere of Sicily (including delicious food, coffee, and wine).

Few Subjective Comments
The cataclysmic variables conference in Mondello (Palermo) represents, in my opinion, another successful workshop confirming Prof. Franco Giovanelli/Vulcano theorem (adopted from his famous Vulcano Frascati workshops), namely that one can make serious science even keeping smiling.As already confirmed before by long series of Vulcano Frascati (and analogous) workshops, the key for successful and highly productive workshop is as follows: nice environment, dining and staying together, enough (and good) wine (or beer in countries like Czech Republic).And great participants and speakers, of course, and last but not least experienced conference organizers.
There was really wide international participation of both field leaders as well as young scientists in our conference -many of them have got the possibility to meet the famous senior scientists they know from the literature for the first time.
Personally, I have much appreciated the high quality of most of invited and review talks.In my opinion, this is nowadays not very common as we face the problem of declining quality of such talks at numerous other conferences.
There were nice carefully prepared reviews by various key speakers covering both theory as well as experiment.These lectures have illustrated and demonstrated the great progress both in theory as well as observation/experiment of CVs (although there was lively discussion this time whether we indeed have enough new observations or not) and related objects over last years.In addition to that, some new and mostly detailed observations on particular CVs were presented and discussed, mostly by young scientific fellows.
As for the previous CV conference, the frequent conclusion of numerous speakers was as follows: we need more and better data, as well as better statistics.In addition to that, prospects of some of the new future experiments/projects still need to be better formulated.In general, there is a need for better monitoring, multilambda observations, and in this direction Robotic Telescopes (RTs, e.g.GLORIA) and novel space experiments may help, as also proposed and discussed during the workshop.

Selected Pictures
In my opinion, the following selected pictures taken during the workshop may much better illustrate the scope, atmosphere, and success of the conference better than any further words.The authors of these pictures are Rene Hudec (21 pictures) and Nataly Katysheva (6 pictures).

Conclusions
The international workshop Golden Era of Cataclysmic Variables and Related Objects II, apart of presenting and discussing numerous contributions, promoted in an effective way further contacts among international CVs community.In my opinion, we definitely need this type of workshop, probably every two years.If compared to the situation two years ago when various future meeting sites were proposed and discussed, I have got feeling that this time, the opinion of majority of participants was quite unique: Franco Giovanelli and his team and Palermo/Sicily remains to be the best option.To conclude, lets hope to meet again in Palermo in 2015 for at least so productive CV workshop as was the one in 2013.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: The Japanese delegation wearing traditional kimono during the welcome reception (left).The delicious Italian coffee served during the coffee breaks at the hotel terrace (right).

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Meeting colleagues and having discussions represented, apart from scientific sessions, a key point of the workshop.

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Scientific talks: the discipline of conference participants in attending was great.

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Sometimes, the discussion among participants was quite lively

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: The main conference organizers and key persons at action (left) and Russian delegation enjoying the delicious wine of Sicily at the dinner (right).

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: The workshop artistic performance (left) and the beautiful sunset observed from the conference hotel terace (right).

Figure 7 :
Figure 7: Are these conference participants both showing their estimate of the accretion disk radius?

Figure 8 :
Figure 8: The delicious desserts served after the meals surely contributed to the workshop success as well.

Figure 9 :
Figure 9: Some (not all) conference participants enjoyed mare and swimming pool bar.

Figure 10 :
Figure 10: Sometimes the discussions continued either at hotel bar, or at dining.

Figure 11 :
Figure 11: These two pictures surely belongs to the workshop highlights.

Figure 12 :
Figure 12: The Etruscan wine tasting and departure for the conference trip.

Figure 13 :
Figure 13: The conference trip to Segesta.