"There are two purposes of the workshop," said Fermilab Theoretical Astrophysicist Jochen Weller, a presenter and member of the organizing committee. "We want to inaugurate the Particle Astrophysics Center and show the world that we are here. Also, we want to bring together experts in this field and create a forum for discussion."

Turner, Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the National Science Foundation, delivered a comprehensive summary of the many unknowns in astrophysics, including the challenges involved with getting accurate measurements of cosmological parameters through upcoming experiments. On Thursday morning, Fermilab director Mike Witherell and the new Particle Astrophysics Center director Rocky Kolb addressed the more than 150 conference attendees, many of them students, and emphasized the importance of collaboration. "The upcoming projects are beyond the scope of a single university, or even a group of universities," Kolb said.

Astrophysicists from many countries spoke about how studying galaxy clusters could help tighten the parameters for the equation of state, with data collected by a variety of surveys from collaborations around the world. "Fermilab is involved in various proposals which try to probe dark energy by observing galaxy clusters through a variety of methods," said Weller. "Right now, our theories of dark energy are wild speculation. We need experimental data to guide our theoretical models."