ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee Telecon
Face to Face meeting August 17, 2007
- Call date: 2007-08-17 08:00 EDT or 14:00 UT (Friday)
- Duration: 8 hr
- USA Number: 1-866-675-5385
- Outside USA Number: +1 517 444 6916
- Passcode: 8445333#
- Leaders: Jon Williams, C. Carilli
- Video will be available all morning from Socorro, Room 280
The OSF Technical Facility warehouse is approaching completion. See
other images and animations.
See
other images.
Attendance
ANASAC Members (
Attendees in RED):
- Andrew Baker (Rutgers) (2008)
- John Bally (U. Colorado) (2008)
- Andrew Blain (Caltech) (2007)
- Xiaohui Fan (U. Az.) (2007)
- Paul Ho (CfA, Harvard) (2008)
- Kelsey Johnson (UVa) (2009)
- Doug Johnstone (HIA/DAO, Victoria) (2007)
- Lee Mundy (U. Md) (2007)
- Jaqueline van Gorkom (Columbia) (2009)
- Gordon Stacey (Cornell) (200?)
- Alycia Weinberger (DTM) (2009)
- Jonathan Williams, Chair (U. Hawaii) (2008)
- Christine Wilson (McMaster U.) (2007)
- Mel Wright (UC Berkeley) (2008)
(
Bold = Member of ASAC)
NRAO:
- J. Hibbard
- A. Wootten
- C. Carilli
- C. Brogan
- A. Russell
Agenda
1) 08:00 - 08:15 Closed Session
2) 08:15 - 08:45 Project Status - construction (Russell)
See Attachments below for PPT
3) 08:45 - 09:15 ALMA operations and the NAASC (Carilli)
See Attachments below for PPT
4) 09:15 - 10:00 ASAC Charges (ASAC members; Wootten & Mangum)
- ASAC Web Page See 1 Aug 2007 Agenda
- Charges from Board Meeting for October 2007 response (Hills/Wootten)
- 1. Assess the preparation of the ALMA real time, observing, and off-line software for early science. In particular, review the impact of the recommendations of the recent software review and the schedule for the next two years. Response to be delivered for 1-2 April Board meeting.
- 2. Revisit the question from April, 2007 of important correlator requirements for early science operations. In particular prioritizing the order of development of software modes. Compare broad early science requirements to correlator modes. Which modes enable the majority of the science? What other capabilities are important? Response to be delivered for 30-31 October Board meeting.
- 3. Review the calibration plan and scientific aspects of Assembly, Integration, Verification testing and for Commissioning. Being mindful of the finite resources (human, financial) available, are changes necessary or desirable for scientific reasons to the plans being implemented? Response to be delivered for 30-31 October Board meeting.
- Note a similar charge was addressed in the Sept 2006 Report. The Board responded to the Report in February 2007: Again the Board is pleased to learn that the ASAC was generally happy with the planning for ALMA calibration and that the report on the progress of the WVR tests with the SMA is encouraging. The search for a fully satisfactory amplitude and flux density calibration scheme has, of course, engaged many experts over the years and ALMA must continue its efforts in this area. Although this problem has engaged the project from the early beginnings, the Board expects that the employment of extra personnel and, in particular, that of a full-time Project Scientist who will interact directly with the ASAC on these matters, will provide new momentum to solving these problems. Here are readings provided the ASAC in Sept 2006:
- Calibration Plan: Current version of the calibration plan and associated documents ("examples", "roadmaps", "matrices", etc.) posted. Comments welcome.
- Calibration Examples: The "meat" of the Calibration Plan. Review of these documents nearly complete.
- Cal Plan Assignments
- Looking to the future, the Board anticipates that ASAC will be asked when appropriate to consider, e.g., a) the progress of the ARCs and their plans for early science support. Is the planned level of readiness and support appropriate for non-expert users?; b) the Operations Plan as accepted by the Board following input of the external reviews and of the JAO; and c) when further work by the Science IPT is available, the imaging capability of ALMA in its three modes: 12-m array, ACA and full ALMA. SIPT will need to provide images with a full range of spatial scales to explore the scientific basis for choosing which of the three modes to use for a given project.
- Proposed Schedule
- 26 Jul Board meets, approves plan for ASAC meetings to address Charges
- 1 Aug ASAC telecon, supporting materials to be available to ASAC
- 17 Aug ANASAC meets in Charlottesville; ASAC members discuss charges
- 3 Sep ESO Community Day, Garching
- 5 Sep ASAC telecon
- 3 Oct ASAC telecon
- Oct ESAC f2f meeting?
- Oct EASAC f2f meeting?
- 15 Oct Nominal date for written report to be sent to Board Secretary
- 28 Oct Executive Committee of Board, ALMA Budget Committee and Personnel Committee meet in Santiago
- 29 Oct Board travels to San Pedro de Atacama
- 30 Oct Board meeting (probably ASAC Report from Cernicharo though as yet not detailed)
- 31 Oct Board meeting
- 1 Nov Board returns to Santiago and home
- 7 Nov ASAC telecon
- JAO Response to ASAC Report
See Attachments below for PPT
5) 10:00 - 10:15 Break
6) 10:15 - 10:45 Project status - software (Brogan, Glendenning)
See Attachments below for PPT
8) 11:30 - 12:30 Charge I: Grants (Williams/subcommittee)
See Supplmental material below
9) 12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
10) 13:30 - 14:00 Charge II: Terms of Reference (Williams/Subcommittee)
See Attachments below for new Terms of Reference.
11) 14:00 - 14:20 Charge III: Science workshop 2008 (Williams/subcomittee)
12) 14:20 - 14:30 Charge IV: Select new ANASAC Chair (Williams/subcommittee)
13) 14:30 - 16:00 Closed session, draft report
14) 16:00 - 16:15 Break
15) 16:15 - 16:45 Summary of draft report to NRAO (Williams)
Supplemental Material
Charges to the ANASAC from NRAO and the
NAASC
CHARGE I. User Grants program: This charge continues from previous
meetings. We repeat the original charge, but revise the specific
issues to be addressed at the meeting, based on the subsequent
ANASAC discussions.
Previous charge: the grants program is a recommended priority by the
decadal committee. NRAO can act as an advocate for the community in
this regard, but the real impetus must come from the community. The
Grants should not be considered funding for NRAO, but should be
considered funding for support for community use of ALMA. Does the
community want a grants-with-observing time program associated with
ALMA? What is a reasonable starting amount for such a program?
Result from previous ANASAC deliberations: The ANASAC has endorsed a
User grants program with ALMA time, and has written a detailed report
recommending: (i) a funding request level ($6M/year 2006 dollars),
(ii) funding guidelines, and (iii) two potential funding models for
the NSF. See the ANASAC report:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/admin.shtml#2006f2f
NRAO thanks the ANASAC for their previous efforts. The ANASAC has made
this issue a priority, and this new charge reflects their desire to
continue discussion of the issue. In particular, the ANASAC
will address the following two issues:
1. Clarification of NSF policy and potential models that are acceptable
to the NSF, subsequent to the NSF ALMA operations review?
2. User community advocacy of a grants program: Coordination with
astronomers who use other NSF facilities (e.g. EVLA, current and
future large OIR projects)? Use of the AAS as a means of
communication?
CHARGE II: Terms of Reference for ANASAC. The primary roles of the ANASAC,
according to the current terms of reference
(
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/anasac/ANASACTermsofReference.pdf),
are:
1. A conduit of communication for ALMA project status to a broad User
base.
2. Input to the
NAASC on User support and science issues in North
America.
An issue that has arisen in the latest ANASAC meetings is the question
of the interaction between the ASAC and the ANASAC -- should the
ANASAC provide more input to the North American members of the ASAC on
charges to the ASAC from the ALMA Board? This duty is not currently
in the ANASAC terms of reference. Does the ANASAC want to expand its
role to include a closer connection to the ASAC and the ASAC charges?
Note that this would be in addition to the existing NRAO terms
requesting that the ANASAC provide detailed input into North American
ALMA User-related and science issues.
CHARGE III. Science workshop 2008 -- The
NAASC would like to continue the
successful series of science workshops relating to ALMA in 2008. The
ANASAC is asked to suggest a timely science topic for such a meeting
in 2008, and to suggest members of the Scientific Organizing Committee.
CHARGE IV. Membership -- The ANASAC is asked to recommend new members to
replace those rotating off the committee and to elect a new chair to
start after the face to face meeting in August, 2007. Andrew Baker and
Andrew Blain have each been nominated and a vote will be taken.
--
ChrisCarilli - 13 Aug 2007
*
Software_ANASAC07.brogan.pdf: Overview of ALMA User Software