1st announcement of a workshop on: EVOLUTION OF COMPACT BINARIES [venue to be defined (surroundings of Valparaiso)], Chile, 6th to 11th March 2011 The workshop is organised jointly by ESO and Universidad de Valparaiso Contact email: binary-evolution-2011@eso.org ------------- Scope: ----- Compact binaries divide into many classes depending upon the mass of either component, the mass transfer rate, the magnetic fields involved and whether the primary star is a white dwarf, neutron star or black hole. However, the evolution of all these objects is driven by a common mechanism: angular–momentum loss. This process controls the change of the orbital period as well as, in the phases of interaction, the mass transfer rate. This means that the basic physics behind all these objects is the same and by comparing the results found for one class we might be able to understand similar problems in another. Some of the open questions that are common to all classes of compact binaries are e.g. - the impact of the common envelope phase - the role of rotation in the evolution of the secondary - the role of magnetic fields in the binary evolution - possible braking mechanisms and their efficiency - physical mechanisms to increase the mass of the compact component to finally reach a point of ignition. With this workshop we plan to bring together people from different communities; in this sense it is a very broad and open workshop. On the other hand, it will be focused as it concentrates on one specific problem, namely the binary evolution which over the last decade has emerged as one of the most active fields within the compact–binary communities. Format: ------ The meeting is planned for 5 days and we want to constrain the number of people to about 80 to increase the scientific efficiency. It shall be concentrating on the physics behind compact binaries which drives and controls the evolution of these stars. Each session shall be dedicated to a specific evolutionary stage. The theoretical and observational state of the art shall be introduced by invited review speakers, after which contributed talks shall present new results. We plan to have a large amount of time reserved for plenary discussions. SOC: --- Jarrod Hurley, AU Andrew King, UK Ulrich Kolb, UK Mario Livio, USA Felix Mirabel, France Linda Schmidtobreick, ESO Matthias Schreiber, Chile LOC: --- Moira Evans, Centro de Astrofisica de Valparaiso Maria Eugenia Gomez, ESO Paulina Jiron, ESO Elena Mason, ESO Kieran O'Brien, UCSB Retha Pretorius, ESO Alberto Rebassa, U. de Valparaiso Linda Schmidtobreick (chair), ESO Matthias Schreiber (chair), U. de Valparaiso Claus Tappert, U. de Valparaiso Maja Vuckovic, ESO Monica Zorotovic, ESO-PUC