ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee

• 2012 ALMA Review Panel members visit the SCO.:
  

Contact Information for those calling in.

• Call date: 2012-10-18 02:00 pm EDT or 18:00 UT (Thursday (Friday in Taipei))
• Duration: 1 hr
  * USA Number: 1-866-600-8836
• Outside USA Number: +1 203 480 8549
• Passcode: 3283890#
• Leaders: J. Carpenter (D. Scott), A. Wootten, C. Lonsdale

• Attendees:

Topics

1. Old Business The enhanced Agenda from last meeting is available. Minutes from that meeting are not available.
2. New Business under Discussion.

Discussion Items

1. NAASC is advertising for a postdoctoral Fellow. NRAO is seeking applicants for Jansky Fellow. 23 applications were received for the JAO Fellow position in ALMA SCO.
2. Construction Status (Wootten)
   • See NRAO eNews
   • 43 antennas at the AOS, 47 antennas accepted by AIV have tasted the thin AOS air.
   • AOS Roads: All 67km completed
   • Band 6 cartridge production finished.
   • Correlator upgraded to four-quadrant operation (32 inputs currently, eventually 64 inputs)
   • Band 5 commissioning successfully completed. Still some issues to obtain a full spectral checkout due to some limitations in the LO.
   • Band 4 phase closure was achieved
3. Operations (Hibbard)
   • Science Operations Section of August report, from DSO
   • Monthly Reports for previous months.
   • Cycle 0 Status:
     • An update on ALMA Cycle 0 observing status was recently posted as a news item on the ALMA Science Portal
     • Loss of Session 23 (Oct 3-9) due to construction activities (4th Q of correlator; permanent power supply). Session 24 started yesterday. Looks like band7 weather.
     • As of Oct 18: 275 (74%) of 373 Highest Priority SBs nominally completed (still need to pass QA2); 168 (45%) passed QA2 & delivered to PIs. 21 (55%) of 38 NA projects have some data delivered. 10 (26%) NA projects finished.
     • ARC-based data has accelerated in the past months. Latencies being reduced: ARCs may now approve QA2 pass & delivery to PI; active focus on assigning all completed datasets. Band9 data reduction still can be quite problematic. Fail rate ~2x higher than other bands.
     • Data reducers may now discuss marginal QA2 pass/fail cases with PI's and share screens/jpgs (may not be used by PIs until data are delivered)
     • NAASC will send emails to PIs who's projects got observations after each of the remaining observing sessions
   • Cycle 1 Status: technical assessments on-going. F2f next week in Santiago.
4. NAASC during Early Science (Lonsdale)
   • People
     • New AD of NA ALMA Operations: Phil Jewell
     • ALMA postdoc applictions (at NAASC) accepted until 30 Nov.
   • What is happening at the NAASC?
   • Meetings upcoming with ALMA or NAASC-related components (see below)
     • Special Session 'ALMA Early Science Commences' approved for AAS Jan 2013 (Long Beach, CA). Contributed abstracts have been accepted; see below.
5. ALMA Development (Wootten)
   • NA SIS Foundry Proposal For discussion. ( Action Item )
   • Studies proceeding.
6. ASAC activities (ASAC members)
   • There was a f2f 8-9 Oct. Materials from presentations.
7. Astronomer Outreach (Lonsdale, Wootten)
   • AAS Meeting: Special session, splinter meeting
     • For the splinter we plan a CASA session. Does ANASAC see a need for an "observing with ALMA" session also ?
   • Outreach ALMA on NBC Rock Center
   • Both ALMA and the VLA are referred to as positive examples of international collaboration and shared-use in today's Nature piece by the NSF Director.
   • NAASC ALMA-related workshop(s) in 2012-3 (see below)
   • Other Astronomer Outreach: JAO ALMA Webpages; ALMA Newsletters; ARC-maintained wiki of ALMA science meetings and training events; NRAO eNews; NAOJ News.
8. Date of next telecon
   • 8 Nov 2012
9. Other Business

Science Corner

1. Outflow Structure and Velocity Field of Orion Source I: ALMA Imaging of SiO Isotopologue Maser and Thermal Emission Florian Niederhofer, Elizabeth Humphreys, Ciriaco Goddi
2. ALMA and VLA Observations of Recombination Lines and Continuum toward the Becklin-Neugebauer object in Orion Roberto Galvan-Madrid (1), Ciriaco Goddi (1), Luis F. Rodriguez (2,3) ((1) ESO-Garching, (2) CRyA-UNAM, (3) KAU)

Events of Interest

Upcoming, very recent, or ongoing Meetings

1. ALMA Science Meetings
2. ALMA Training Events
3. Upcoming NA Meetings
   • "Molecular Spectroscopy in the Era of Far-IR Astronomy Workshop" Oct 28-31 2012, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
   • New Trends in Radio Astronomy in the ALMA Era - The 30th Anniversary of Nobeyama Radio Observatory 3 December - 8 December 2012; The Prince Hotel, Hakone, Japan
   • Pan-Executive ALMA "First results" workshop in Chile: 12-15 Dec 2012.
   • 221st AAS Meeting Jan 6-10 2013, Long Beach, CA AAS 221 ALMA Special Session Abstracts
   • Joint workshop with ASIAA. Short Title: "2013 Rocks!" Long Title: "Transformational Science with ALMA: the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems" in Hawaii, April 2013; SOC formed.
   • Exploring the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Victoria, B. C., 2 June 2013 - Friday, 7 June 2013
   • Protostars and Planets VI: Heidelberg; 15 July 2013 - Saturday, 20 July 2013

• NA SIS Foundry Proposal: ANASAC_SIS_Foundry_Proposal.pdf