The Early Phase of Star Formation
The MPIA conference series at Ringberg Castle, Germany
                   
EPoS 2020 Objectives
Since the discovery of Bok globules in the 1940s, the initial phase of the star formation process has been the target of intense scientific research, and yet we are unable to arrive at a generally accepted paradigm.

EPoS meetings cover all aspects, but EPoS 2020 was designed to make an effort to highlight the impact of dynamics.
Some of the questions to be raised were: What are the key observational parameters, do we have the necessary tools to derive the physical quantities, how realistic can we trace the dynamical aspect in simulations and what can we learn from the evolution of the momentum vector field?

Early formation of stars from the low- to the high-mass regime was considered.

Individual astrophysical topics of interest were: triggered star formation, clustered star formation, cores, chemistry, collapse, fragmentation, jets, competitive accretion, giant molecular clouds, binarity, magnetic fields, initial mass function, turbulence, X-rays, and cosmic rays.
Protostellar disks are included, protoplanetary disks are excluded.
The EPoS way: Large group, small room, remote location. Consider all aspects. Short talks, intense discussions.