Since the launch of HST, COBE, WMAP, and with the advent of large ground based telescopes, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and various balloon missions, cosmology has finally become an observational science in full force. Ensuing from this advance is the large body of evidence which, at the present stage, appear to favor the ‘standard model’ of a Universe consisting principally of dark matter and dark (vacuum) energy, having undergone a phase of inflation. Although a good fraction of the data gathered so far can be explained by invoking these three tenets, inconsistencies do manifest themselves in many and varied ways. As a result, alternative theories have been proposed.

The purpose of this conference is to overview the evidence for and against the standard cosmological model. We aim to invite review speakers to summarize the status of key pieces of evidence in both categories, followed by highlight and contributed talks to look at the outstanding questions, ways of addressing them (including alternative competing models), and future scientific and techological prospects.

The following areas of broad classifications define the framework of the conference:
> CMB anisotropy, polarization and foregrounds
> Baryon acoustic peak from the SDSS
> Matter power spectrum from, e.g. the 2dFGRS and Lyman-alpha survey
> Predictive elements of inflationary models
> Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
> The Hubble Constant and the Local Hubble Flow
> Type Ia supernovae observations
> Evidence for and possible explanations of the ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ phenomena
> Gravitational Clustering and the Evolution and Properties of Galaxies, Groups, and Clusters
> The cosmic matter and baryon budget from observations and theory
> The question of mass-to-light ratio and galaxies as tracers of mass
> The age of the universe
> Prospects for laboratory detection of dark matter
> Alternative theories of gravity and their phenomonology from the solar system to the horizon

Introductory Talk by Roger Blandford (Stanford)

Invited speakers include:
Alain Blanchard (Toulouse)
Lawrence Krauss (CWRU)
Max Bonamente (Huntsville)
Ofer Lahav (UCL London)
Shaun Cole (Durham)
Kate Land (Oxford)
Francoise Combes (Obs. Paris)
Fabrizio Nicastro (Harvard CfA)
Carlo Contaldi (Imperial)
Bob Nichol (Portsmouth)
John Cowan (Oklahoma)
Reynald Pain (Paris)
Marc Davis (Berkeley)
Subir Sarkar (Oxford)
Pedro Ferreira (Oxford)
Ryan Scranton (Pittsburgh)
Gary Hinshaw (Goddard)
Douglas Scott (UBC) [TBD]
Christine Jones (Harvard CfA)
Tom Shanks (Durham)
Lloyd Knox (UC Davis)
Yoh Takei (ISAS Japan)