ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee

• Attendees at the NAASC/ASIAA conference Rocks 2013:
  

Contact Information for those calling in.

• Call date: 2013-4-18 02:00 pm EDT or 18:00 UT (Thursday (Friday in Taipei))
• Duration: 1 hr
  * USA Number: 1-866-692-4538
• Outside Tokyo in Japan Number: 0066-33-132434
• Outside USA +1-517-466-2084
• Passcode: 3668477#
• Confirmation Number: 1883473
• Leaders: J. Carpenter, P. Jewell, A. Wootten, C. Lonsdale

• Attendees:

Topics

1. Old Business The enhanced Agenda from last meeting is available. Minutes from that meeting are available.
2. New Business under Discussion.

Discussion Items

1. Construction Status (Wootten)
   • Good weather (PWV: 0.4 - 0.6 mm),
   • Part of the AOS system has been connected to the Permanent Power System and is now fed by the turbines. The increase in overall load showed an increase in efficiency, as expected.
   • 54 antennas at AOS of which 41 are operational. 9 12m unavailable owing to problems; 4 unavailable owing to maintenance.
2. Operations (Hibbard)
   • DDT call released March 1
   • We need volunteers from ANASAC to test the PI view of the Project Tracker. The test should be in mid-May.
   • SciOps Report March 2013
   • Monthly Reports for previous months.
   • Cycle 1 Status:
     • See Science Portal news items about the Cycle1 plans for the early part of the cycle, and for cycle 0 news.
   • Cycle 0 Status: Data delivered by end of February (see portal)
     • ALMA Archive: ALMA Science data continues to grow and to be disseminated. 23 datasets our of proprietary period
   • Cycle 2 planning: * Proposer's Guide Working Group began telecons
3. ASAC Items Report on edm.alma.cl
4. ALMA Development (Wootten)
   • Development-NA Workshop scheduled Charlottesville 18 April 2013
   • Studies proceeding. Call for Studies ca 1 May. Call for Proposals 3 June. Object is to get all done within 2013 fiscal year.
5. NAASC during Early Science (Lonsdale)
   • People
     • Term scientist position now closed.
   • Meetings with ALMA or NAASC-related components (see above)
     • Last week: Joint NAASC/Taiwan workshop "Transformational Science with ALMA: From Dust to Rocks to Planets" Kona, Hawaii, April 8-12 2013
     • Next NAASC Workshop?
     • AAS Indianapolis.
   • What is happening at the NAASC?
     • For Cycle 1, all Contact Scientist assignments have made.
       • Focusing on batch 3 SBs
       • in total 35 approved by PIs; 18 more PIs contacted
     • Visitors:
       • Sean Andrews, March 27, 28
       • Carl Ferkinhoff & Drew Brisbin, April 8-12
     • Pipeline:
       • More NA staff assigned temporarily, to assist with validating regression test datasets
       • Some regression test SBs are now being used by CSV, during the C1 lull
         • a mixed-mode SB was recently run through the pipeline. Most antennas had good Tsys; some calibration issues with Titan close to Saturn
     • Cycle 2 preparation
       • Continuing on original schedule
       • Evaluating technical issues that tripped up or confused Cycle 1 proposers and correcting, updating materials and planning new materials if warranted
         • eg first video, about LAS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8WtLo9C9Q&feature=youtu.be
6. Astronomer Outreach (Lonsdale, Wootten)
   • Would like to ask ANASAC to canvas the community: what factors might be limiting people from proposing, eg.:
     • Not aware how it could help their science
     • Not aware of the big leap afforded by its capabilities
     • Think it's too difficult to use for a non-expert
     • Waiting till it's fully built and/or there's much more time available on it
     • Lack of funding
   • Planning a series of short webinars focused on specific topics
   • Will do a series of Community Days this spring / summer
   • Cycle 2 preparation splinter session at AAS
   • Other Astronomer Outreach: JAO ALMA Webpages; ALMA Newsletters; ARC-maintained wiki of ALMA science meetings and training events; NRAO eNews; NAOJ News.
7. Date of next telecon
   • 16 May 2013
   • Proposed dates for 2013 telecons: 5/16. 6/20, 7/18, 8/16, 9/19, 10/17, 11/21, 12/19
8. Other Business

Science Corner

1. Science Workshops and Meetings
   • Recent
     • ALMA B11 Workshop Queen’s College, University of Oxford, UK, March 19th-20th, 2013
     • Herschel Calibration Workshop 25-27 March, ESAC, Madrid
     • ACADEMY COLLOQUIUM FIRSED 2013 - April 3-5, 2013 Amsterdam
     • ALMA NA Development Workshop 18 April Charlottesville
   • Upcoming
     • NealFest 24-26 April, Austin Texas
     • 9th annual Postdoctoral Science Symposium 29-30 April, Green Bank, W. Va
     • Radio Astronomy in the LSST Era 6-8 May, Charlottesville
     • VLB Workshop 13-17 May Shanghai
     • Science with ALMA Band 2 Workshop 27-28 May, Bologna, Italy
     • Requirements for UTC and Civil Timekeeping on Earth 29-31 May, UVa, Charlottesville, Va
     • Exploring the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems Victoria, B. C., 2 June 2013 - Friday, 7 June 2013
     • Seventh NAIC/NRAO Single-Dish Summer School Arecibo. 10-17 July 2013
2. ALMA Papers (choose ALMA) 39 and counting (more on arxiv not yet listed here but added below)
   • ALMA Observations of the HH 46/47 Molecular Outflow Hector G. Arce, Diego Mardones, Stuartt Corder, Guido Garay, Alberto Noriega-Crespo, Alejandro C. Raga, Sylvie Cabrit

Events of Interest

Upcoming, very recent, or ongoing Meetings

1. ALMA Science Meetings
2. ALMA Training Events

• SciOps Report March 2013: SciOps_March2013.pdf

• Rocks 2013 Participants: