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Contact Information

  • 2008-12-17 15:30 UT
  • Note: C. Wilson points out line noise may be muted by pressing *6 which works thru the call center.
  • Duration: 1 hr
  • USA Toll Free Number: 877-874-1919
  • Toll Number: +1-203-320-9891
  • Passcode: 185064
  • Leader: Al Wootten
  • Attendees: C. Wilson, Wootten, Hills, Laing, Peck, Nikolic, Lucas, Hales, Mauersberger, Brogan, Indebetouw, T. Wilson

Topics

  1. Old Business The enhanced Agenda from last meeting is available. Science IPT notes from last month's telecon are attached to the bottom of the agenda.

The ALMA Compact Array under Construction, Dec 2008. The ALMA Compact Array under Construction, Dec 2008.

See other images and animations. See other images and transporters.

  1. New Business--Project news/updates. Current Schedule View (Hills, Peck)
  • Commissioning Scientists have arrived in Chile - Denis Barkats to join early January.
  • ALMA Status Report R. Hills.
    • Science milestones for ALMA These are the updated new Science milestones. Comments please.
    • Schedule Control Plan
    • Annual ALMA External Review occured 9-11 Dec;
    • Site: Installation of foundations continues. 28 high site pads have received structural concrete. A plan to populate these for CSV and beyond beginning with the ACA pads has been developed; see attachments and comment please.
    • Antennas: Melco No 2 conditional acceptance expected in Dec. Vertex No 1 has completed Surface tests: metrology systems being worked on. Acceptance likely to be in February 2009.
    • Front Ends: The first "engineering model" has been installed in Melco No 2. The second "engineering model" front-end from the EA FEIC is in Chile at the OSF. The third is expected from the EU FEIC in February.
    • Back Ends: Some LO items remain on the critical path to high site interferometry.
    • Correlator: Assembly of the first quadrant at the AOS has been completed. It is humming contentedly along.
    • Software: Overall external review occurred 17-23 Nov.
    • Systems: New group under Nick Whyborn now active. Developing detailed procedures for testing and verification of systems requirements.
    • Schedule: The schedule control is ongoing.
    • ASAC Matters.
      • Report delivered to Board.
      • Response from JAO
      • Face-to-face meeting in Chile 28-29 Jan.
      • Panel to prepare ALMA Development Proposal has had several telecons, draft report written.
  • ALMA Science IPT wiki page
  • Astronomer Outreach: New JAO ALMA Webpages. ESO Newsletter No 15 NRAO eNews ALMA News. NAOJ News. NRAO ALMA Calendar
  1. Directories

Science IPT Group Activity Reports

Please include your Group Activity Report here (How to Enter Your Report), or email it to AlWootten

Project Scientists

  1. Science IPT
    • Change Control Board items Nothing major that is new here. Lots of details on ICD's, etc.,being tidied up. (Hills)
      • Several problems with the site, including the levels of the pads in the central cluster and the schedule for delivery of fully operational pads. It is now proposed to use the ACA pads with 12m antennas for the later phases of commissioning and the start of Early Science. See ACA_opt1.pdf
      • Band 3 Receiver Noise Temperature Specification A change has been accepted.
      • Configuration of Central Cluster
    • ATF: (Laing)
      • Summary. ATF will operate thru 20 Dec, A shutdown plan will then commence.
      • AIV wiki OSF/AIV Daily log.
    • OSF (Peck)
2008
 
 
Week Sci Staff Event
Dec 17
Corder, Sawada
Preparing Test Procedures

  1. Next meeting is on Jan 20th (14:30 UT). Feb 18th for the following month.

Richard Hills, Alison Peck, Robert Laing -- Commissioning and Science Verification

  • Commissioning and Science Verification
    • Plan.
    • A request for additional manpower has been approved. Advertisements are out. Please inform interested parties.

Jeff Mangum -- Calibration

  • A detailed study of the thermal and RF properties of various designs of calibration load has been released. It is rather large Load_models.pdf. A discussion occurred in the Calibration Group last week.
  • Document on absolute calibration.
  • Pointing Design document now drafted. Waiting for release of metrology system details to complete.
  • 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, some need updates.
  • Ancillary Calibration Devices:
    • The first production weather station has been tested at the OSF.
  • Refractive Bending and Delay Calculations:
    • Analysis complete. See wiki page for details.
    • Recent analysis of Yan refractive bending model suggests that it is limited (using sla_refro as benchmark).
    • Worked with Pat Wallace to implement improvements to sla_refro, including incorporation of Liebe atmospheric model.
    • Recommendation is to use sla_refro for refractive bending (note: currently used in M&C software in use at ATF).
  • ALMA Calibration Device (ACD): Several reviews (involving acronyms that I won't repeat) of ALMA Calibration Device (ACD) over past month point to both good and bad:
    • Good: Robotic arm tests suggest that positioning between bands will be as fast as 5-6 seconds, rather than the anticipated 9 seconds.
    • Bad: Frontend IPT unilaterally changed specification of solar filter to exclude use at Bands 1 and 2. Change not approved, and justification for change flawed.

Bojan Nikolic/John Richer -- Simulations Workshop

  • This took place and there are lots of interesting presentations at that link.
  • This includes an update on the work that Bojan has been doing on Phase Correction.

Robert Lucas -- eSSR

  • eSSR had its first meeting last month. (2008-11-12). No meeting this month owing to clash with AAER08.

Testi, Leurini-- Design Reference Science Plan

  • working on version 2.1, adding some projects, cleaning up.
  • summary spread sheet almost completed.
  • Some items to be added - more polarization cases, pulsars, is there anything on fine-structure in hot haloes using S-Z?

Wootten -- Site Characterization

Remijan, Markwick-Kemper -- ALMA Working Group on Spectral Line Frequencies

Science Corner:

arXiv:0810.3109

Calendar

Events of Interest

(see also Al's ALMA Biweekly Calendar)

2008
 
 
 
 
 
Day Date Time Event location details
 
Dec 17-18
 
Acceptance procedures for Melco No 2
OSF
 
 
Dec 17
 
ASAC telecon
 
 
 
Dec 17
 
Sci IPT telecon
Telecon
 
 
Dec 18
 
ALMA Board telecon
 
 
 
Dec 20
 
ALMA Test Facility closes
ATF
 
 
Jan 21
 
Sci IPT telecon
Telecon
 
 
Jan 26-27
 
CASA Tutorial, Santiago
ESO Vitacura
 
 
Jan 28-29
 
ASAC f2f meeting, OSF
OSF
 
 
Jan 29
 
ALMA Board telecon
 
 
 
Feb 18
 
Sci IPT telecon
Telecon
 
 
Mar 11-13
 
ALMA Board meeting
OSF
 

Upcoming Meetings

URSI/NA Meeting Jan 5-8, Boulder, CO Abstract Book of ALMA session N.B. Emerson talk withdrawn.

213th AAS Meeting Jan 4-8, Long Beach, CA; NRAO Town Hall evening 7th.

ALMA and ELTs: A Deeper, Finer View of the Universe Mar 24-27, Garching, Germany.

Millimeter and Submillimeter Astronomy at High Angular Resolution June 8-12, Taipei, Taiwan.

-- AlWootten - 15 Dec 2008 * 2008-10-22-ALMA-90.02.00.00-004-B-SPE.pdf: First science array proposal

* 2008-12-16-ALMA-90.02.00.00-004-B-SPE.pdf: First science array proposal

Topic attachments
I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
2008-12-16-ALMA-90.02.00.00-004-B-SPE.pdfpdf 2008-12-16-ALMA-90.02.00.00-004-B-SPE.pdf manage 3 MB 2008-12-16 - 16:34 AlWootten First science array proposal
This topic: ALMA > WebHome > AlmaSci > AlmImcal > MonthlyMeetings > 17Dec08Agenda
Topic revision: 2010-08-02, ToddHunter
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