ANASAC minutes from Sep 12 telecon
ALMA STATUS
Al reported on the current status of the array. It is currently in a C43-8ish configuration with baselines up to 8.5km. He was asked about the expected completion fraction of long-baseline projects, but did not have that information.
STUDENT OBSERVING SUPPORT (SOS)
About 40 requests were received for student support for C5 projects. The budget will allow approx 11 to be funded. This is a similar oversubscription to previous years
ALMA AMBASSADORS
The program is open for post docs to apply to become ALMA ambassadors.
9 postdocs were selected in Cycle 5 and visited Charlottesville for a training workshop to:
learn more about the topics covered at ALMA Community Day Events
prepare to host an ALMA Community Day Event at their home institution
meet and collaborate with the other ALMA Ambassadors
practice public speaking skills
give presentations on their own research at the NAASC
ALMA Ambassadors then hosted 7 Community Day Events (at Yale, Universityof Michigan, University of Toronto, University of Hawaii, Rice University,University of Texas -Austin, and West Virginia University) all in the 2 weeksprior to the Cycle 5 proposal deadline reaching 121 participants
2 events (at Yale and Rice) had 2 postdocs working together to host
1 event (at the University of Michigan) was a joint ALMA/VLA event soVLA staff also supported
Postdocs were awarded a $10k research grant
ALMA SCIENCE KEY INDICATORS
The indicators are listed in the agenda. Karin asked how they compared with last year and Al replied that they are up by a lot.
ALMA science key indicators
786 refereed ALMA publications. Last year at this time there were 445.
1010 post-proprietary project data are available in the ALMA Archive, Last year at this time there were 578
224 ALMA papers published so far in 2017. I dont have this number for papers published thru Aug 2016 from Jan 2016.
ASAC F2F MEETING
The permanent charges and ad hoc charges are listed in the agenda. Karin will assemble a draft of the ANASAC response and concerns based on the ANASAC f2f meeting report and circulate it to ANASAC for input next week. She will then pass on the final document to ASAC ahead of the f2f meeting. Karin will not attend the meeting herself.
NAASC
There is a recent C4 update in the last NRAO eNews. C5 will begin as planned Oct 1. ANASAC is requested to provide feedback about the proposal review results gathered from the community.
ALMA DEVELOPMENT
NA is bringing two new development projects to the board on an upgrade to the ALMA correlator (PI Lacasse, NRAO), and to enable new science with APS (PI: Matthews, MIT). The former project is proposed to upgrade the correlator in two phases, starting with an increased number of channels and resolution as well as a switch to 4-bit correlation. An increase in the processed bandwidth and higher time resolution will follow in the second phase. The timescale for the second phase has not yet been established. B2+ is not included in the proejcts being brought before the board because of the scheduled B2+3 PDR in November.
Dan brought up that the current correlator uses only 3.75 of 4 GHz capability and asks whether this will be addressed by the correlator upgrade. Al replied that the project is aware of this inefficiency, but did not have any concrete information. Currently B6 is being extended half a GHz outward and tests are working well.
4 new development studies have also been approved. Giles asked about whether similar studies to the one on full-Mueller mosaic imaging are ongoing in EA or EU. To the best of Als knowledge they are not.
OTHER
Karin is leaving ANASAC at the end of the year and ANASAC therefore needs to select a new chair. Send nominations to Karin: self-nominations are encouraged!
There is also a need to add members to ANASAC and Al asks that ANASAC email him nominations.
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Karin I. Öberg
Professor of Astronomy
Harvard University
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AlWootten - 2017-09-18