Dear colleagues,

We are happy to announce the upcoming international conference 'Symbiotic stars, weird novae, and related embarrassing binaries' which will be held at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, from June 3 to 7, 2024. For detailed information about the conference, please visit the conference website. Registration and abstract submission will be available starting November 15, 2023. 

Website: http://symbiotics2024.cuni.cz/
Email contact: symbiotics2024@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz

Rationale:
Recent ground-based programs and groundbreaking space missions, together with new methods involved in data analysis, have brought significant discoveries while outlining future directions of research of multiple stellar systems. However, within the realm of objects like symbiotic stars and other peculiar binaries, numerous aspects concerning their behavior, parameters, and evolution remain unresolved. The conference aims to discuss and build upon recent advancements in the field, made possible through dedicated research by the global scientific community.

A few of the key topics to be addressed include:

• relationship between symbiotic stars, novae, peculiar cataclysmic variables, and red novae/mergers,
• recurrent novae, super-soft X-ray sources, and the symbiotic channel leading to Type Ia supernovae,
• stability and time scales of mass transfer and the accretion disk in eruptive systems,
• novae with evolved giant donors,
• interaction of nova ejecta with its circumstellar and interstellar surroundings,
• R Aqr as a proxy for interacting binaries with AGB donors,
• X-ray emitting symbiotic stars,
• extragalactic populations of symbiotic systems,
• red novae and other mergers,
• extreme Algols and W Ser-type interacting binaries.

The list is open, and participants are encouraged to propose other related topics, enriching the conference's discourse. The conference program remains dynamic and will be shaped by the SOC based on the abstracts submitted by participants. We anticipate that this conference will foster collaboration, inspire new research directions, and enhance our comprehension of these enigmatic stellar systems.

SOC:

• Elias Aydi (Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA)
• Denise R. Gonçalves (Observatório do Valongo, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
• Yael Hillman (Azrieli College of Engineering Jerusalem, Israel)
• David Jones (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, El Centro de Astrofísica en La Palma, Breña Baja, Spain)
• Tomasz Kamiński (Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Toruń, Poland)
• Jaroslav Merc (Co-Chair; Astronomical Institute of Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
• Joanna Mikołajewska (Co-Chair; Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)

On the behalf of the SOC and LOC,

Jaroslav Merc (Chair of the LOC, Co-Chair of the SOC)
Joanna Mikołajewska (Co-Chair of the SOC)