Science IPT Earned Value Analysis: We are looking good.
Parametric Cuts to enhance contingency (NA only)
ASAC Meeting - The ASAC has prepared their report to the Board.
Science Requirements -- The revised document is located in the DAR area and should be reconsidered by the CCB (which approved it once) shortly.
Characterization -- Characterization has ended and we move toward atmospheric monitoring for observations. The first stage is at the OSF. See Calibration discussion.
New Faces
ALMA/NA, EU postdoc. Offers made to Reid (Penticton) and Hales (UCL); accepted. ESO: De Gregorio-Monsalvo (Chile) and Silvia Leurini in Garching. JP: Sekiuchi, a planetary scientist, has joined the group.
JAO Project Scientist Turno now in effect, Wilson in place.
Current Science IPT Schedule (Click for more accurate tabular form)
Submillimeter Frequency Protection. Remijan: Report. The radio astronomy spectrum management community continues to work toward the possibility of extending the frequency allocation tables above 275 GHz. The goal is to create new spectrum allocations for the radio astronomy service that will protect spectral lines of interest to us, up through frequencies as high as 3 THz. We are working within the International Telecommunication Union to facilitate the discussion of extending the allocation tables. The topic is on the agenda for the 2010 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-10). Because those of us who are addressing this issue at the ITU are not submillimeter observers, we are in need of feedback regarding the specific bands of interest. At this time, there is a single document circulating within Working Party 7D (Radio Astronomy) of Study Group 7 (Science Services) of the ITU which contains a list of spectral lines of interest to the radio astronomy service above 275 GHz. The list is in two parts: lines between 275 - 1,000 GHz, which is based upon a list established by the IAU (Table 3.1 of the attached document); and lines of interest between 1,000 - 3,000 GHz, which is mostly based upon line data obtained from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (Table 3.2). At this time, the second list is in need of close scrutiny by the submm community.
I have prepared a document that addresses many of the points in the above description and brings to light some new issues. The Initial document (FreqProtection_3.pdf) has several issues inside it that need discussion and should be ongoing over the next several months. The first two issues that may be possible to address at this meeting is 1) Is the list of molecules complete and 2) to what level, based on the examples in the text, does each species need to be explained in its astronomical importance. If we can decide on those two issues, I can move forward in revising the initial document. In addition, comments, suggestions and edits on any part of the document can be made via an Evaluation Form written in MS Word. Please send these suggestions via a completed evaluation form to mailto:aremijan@nrao.edu.
A new transmission plot is available that covers the entire frequency range in Figure 1.
Also an effort in the IAU, meeting in Pague August 18 Ohishi will make some presentations. If ALMA has a significant amount of input it would probably swamp anyone else. Funnel that into WG10. ITU radioastronomy follows that. NO allocations above 275 GHz, will be addressed WARC 2010 or 2012.
Detailed explanation behind any individual line.
Astronomer Outreach: NRAO Newsletter ESO Newsletter. NRAO ALMA CalendarLaing--meetings in Europe. ALMA talks at various xgal conferences, SKA focus in Oxford in April. Next framework call for radionet etc will be coming out towards end of year. Meeting in Volterra in April aiming to continue this. Statement of interest to be circulated around science IPT. Special session at ASJ full day of ALMA talks. 29th March.
System Requirements Review followup tentatively scheduled 27-28 April
PSI at the AOC: Darrel Emerson Cable wrap works extremely well, removing substantial risk. In particular, polzn induced phase changes were a big worry. Even open loop the wrap is stable, closing the LLC makes it absolutely stable. It will be expensive but it will work. Timing issues are being chased down. Digitizer works very well but subtle effects involving statistics are being investigated. Lots of small problems.
Laing reported progress in setting up a meeting on WVRs 2-3-4 October.
Report on Optical Pointing Integrated User test at the ATF. SSR OPT at AOC then at ATF two weeks from now. Now in simulation mode at the AOC. First user tests on e2e systems with OT,scheduling archive, control with a version of the control language, SBs, results written in the final ALMA format, into archive, then read and reduced by TelCal etc. We have a system which is working but there are many bugs and occasional crashes. The system works well and will be reported. Next week in Garching full simulation mode, the next focus for computing ipt. This will work by the end of next month.
Work on single field interferometry in simulation has started.
Update of Commissioning and science verification plan needed, to include ACA.
Mark Holdaway/Steve Myers, Reid -- Imaging
Reid posted an example of wide field polarization correction for a heterogeneous array. Imaging. DRAO imaging. SM: working on simulations of SZ with ALMA. Using sims of Frommer from DITA, and also at Bologna. B1 and B3. Pretty tough to do this in B3.