ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee

  • Long Baselines, lonely antennas:

Contact Information for those calling in.

  • Call date: 2014-11-20 2:00 pm EST or 19:00 UT (Thursday (Friday in Taipei))
  • Duration: 1 hr
    * USA Number: 1-866-692-4538
  • Outside USA +1-517-466-2084
  • Passcode: 9480444#
  • Leaders: A. Bolatto, P. Jewell, A. Wootten
  • CV Room: 331


  • Attendees:

Topics

  1. Old Business
  2. New Business under Discussion.

Discussion Items

  1. NAASC (Jewell)
  • Long Baseline Campaign (LBC) LBC is currently finishing up
    • Moving antennas into more compact configurations
    • ES Observing will resume at the end of this month
  • NA ALMA Antenna Review
    • Panel met on 27-29 October in Charlottesville
      • Chaired by David Woody with 10 other members from other executives and independent experts
    • Determined three good possibilities for the surface accuracy (vs temperature) issues:
      • Squeezing of the receiver cabin by the (cold) yoke
      • Azimuthal thermal gradients in the receiver cabin
      • Quadrupod asymmetry
    • The panel suggested several follow-up actions to narrow these down.
    • NRAO is working on a project plan and will engage Vertex and JAO in the program.
  • ALMA Board Meeting
    • Operation’s Readiness Review Deferred until week of 27 April 2015
    • Long Baseline Campaign SV data will be released to the public in February. The JAO staff plans to write a 4/5 papers summarizing at a high level the results of the LBC which will be submitted shortly thereafter, in accordance with procedure. The Board discussed and noted this plan.
    • The ASAC report recommendations were accepted by the Board.
  • UC / ANASAC Report received, response is being prepared.
  • The NAASC has two positions advertised – an astronomer (tenure track) and a scientist track (one or more positions available).
  1. Program Scientist (Wootten)
  2. Science Status (Lonsdale)
    • ES begins again Dec2 in most compact configuration (C34-1). Another ES hiatus Feb/Mar for annual software/hardware upgrades.
    • ALMA Status Report was posted to SP on Nov 12, and broadcast to NA community
      • Includes configuration schedule, observing statistics, remaining observing pressure as function of LST, config & Band, EOC summary
    • PL-assisted data reduction is ongoing. Our goal is to get these to attending PIs before December
    • Cycle 3 planning:
      • Call/Deadline in Mar/Apr next year; panel meetings June in Japan; observing starts Oct1. 12mo cycle, so will be close to yearly cadence
      • Cycle 3 proto-capabilities (TBC): 36 antennas, longer baselines (frequency dependent), FDM polarization. Go/no-go decision on these will be made on Dec1. SG limitations will persist (5 tunings, 150ptg, 10deg limits per SG)
    • Support to JAO: E. Fomalont & A. Remijan (long term EOC support), T. Hunter/ C. Brogan/L. Perez (long term EOC support for long baseline campaign Oct/Nov); R. Simon/J. DiFrancesco /K. Sheth/D. Brisben (AoD support Dec/Jan).
    • NA Cycle 1&2 Data Reduction update (Nov17):
      • Cycle 1: 198 HP projects in total. 140 (70%) with some SBs finished, 127 (64%) with some data delivered; 64 (32%) completely delivered.
      • Cycle 2: Cycle 2 HP Projects: 354 projects in total. 113 (32%) with some SBs finished, 62 (18%) with some data delivered; 12 (3%) completely delivered.
  3. Astronomer Outreach
  4. Date of next meeting
    • 15 Jan 2015
    • Proposed dates for 2015 telecons: 15 Jan, 5 Mar, 7 May, 2 Jul, 3 Sep, 5 Nov. Comments please.
  5. Other Business

Science Corner

  1. Memos and papers of note
  2. Press Releases
  3. ALMA Papers (choose ALMA)

Events of Interest

2014/5
 
 
 
 
 
7 Dec 2014
 
ALMA Symposium
Tokyo
 
13 Dec 2014
 
ALMA Postdoc Symposium
Mitaka
 
4-8 Jan 2015
 
AAS 225
Seattle
 
March 2015
 
Cycle 3 Call for Proposals
 
April 2015
 
Cycle 3 Deadline
 
June 2015
 
Cycle 3 panel meetings
 
July 2015
 
Cycle 3 results to PIs
 
Oct 1 2015
 
Start of Cycle 3 observing seasons
 

See also google calendars:
  1. ALMA Science Meetings
  2. ALMA Training Events

-- AlWootten - 2014-11-18
Topic attachments
I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
AEDM_2014-096-O_ASAC_Report-f2fOct2014_report.pdfpdf AEDM_2014-096-O_ASAC_Report-f2fOct2014_report.pdf manage 176 K 2014-11-20 - 11:37 AlWootten Final ASAC Report Oct 2014
ANASACf2f2014-v2.pdfpdf ANASACf2f2014-v2.pdf manage 63 K 2014-11-20 - 11:29 AlWootten ANASAC f2f Report
BoardASACNovember2014.pdfpdf BoardASACNovember2014.pdf manage 520 K 2014-11-19 - 11:21 AlWootten Bolatto Board presentation on ASAC Report
recommendedDefinitionALMALPs.pdfpdf recommendedDefinitionALMALPs.pdf manage 274 K 2014-11-20 - 13:49 AlWootten ALMA Large Projects
Topic revision: r7 - 2014-11-20, AlWootten
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