Thirty Meter Telescope-MICHI and China: A workshop on thermal-IR astronomy

The field of thermal-IR astronomy will soonenjoy a revolution, when the JWST is launched. It is easy to imagine that allareas of IR astronomy will be greatly advanced, but perhaps impossible toconceive of the new vistas that will be opened. Many of these expecteddiscoveries will require follow-up observations at higher spectral and spatialresolution than what JWST will be able provide. Therefore, we are now designing science cases and an instrument forMICHI (Mid-IR Camera, High-disperser & IFU spectrograph), a thermal-IRimager and spectrometer for early operation on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).

This workshop will focus on ground-basedthermal-IR science that can be done now and the science cases for building athermal-IR instrument for TMT, harnessing expertise across the TMTpartnership.  At this workshop, we willdiscuss the goals and requirements of a thermal-IR instrument from the ChineseTMT community and discuss how our cross-TMT partnership can be leveraged intocollaborations to pursue science goals now on existing instruments.  We invite all participants who may beinterested in thermal-IR science or instrumentation, including those with noprevious experience at thermal-IR wavelengths.