Tidal Evolution Research Review for Astrophysics (TERRA)

Of all the various physical processes to which celestial bodies are prone, few can claim to be more ubiquitous than tidal interactions. Yet despite being a decisive factor in the evolution and fate of many celestial systems across many orders of magnitude in mass and size, and despite all the effort that has gone into trying to understand them, tidal interactions are still poorly understood. Much of this lack of progress is due to the fact that tidal interactions are complicated physical processes, manifesting in many ways, with different aspects becoming dominant under different conditions. As such, many researchers in the field often focus on aspects immediately relevant to their own research, and are unfamiliar with others which are not.

This workshop aims to gather scientists working on different aspects of tides into a cohesive discussion group, to shed as much light as we can on how to improve our understanding of tidal processes.

The goals of this workshop are to:

• Start writing a review of how tidal processes are studied and what models/codes/methods are used in different bodies of interest;
• Identify potential overlap between different codes and disciplines within the field, at least among experts in said field.
• To provide a macroscopic view of the observational data, sub-disciplines and methods currently used by various researchers in the field;
• Seek to better understand how dissipation works, thereby improving our physical understanding of tidal phenomena;
• Improve upon the numerical methods, hopefully facilitating the process of achieving a simulation that doesn’t rely on too many assumptions.

By thus gathering the experts on these different approaches, we expect to provide a more macroscopic overview of the grand picture, to bring us closer to complete understanding of tides, if such a thing is possible.