ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee

• Array from a spur on Chajnantor by Neil Phillips:
  

Contact Information for those calling in.

• Call date: 2013-7-25 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. Status (Wootten)
   • Antennas at the AOS: 59 (47x12m, 12x7m). Locations
     • Power failures and poor weather have delayed antenna moves and further Cycle 1 observations. Software acceptance has proceeded, with several Cycle 1 Projects as test elements in the acceptance.
   • Antennas at the OSF: 5
   • All Band 10 WCAs shipped on 28-June-2013. All Band 4 & 8 WCAs have been accepted by the project. Nutators to arrive at OSF soon (two batches of two). 23rd DA antenna to be delivered in a few weeks.
   • Cycle1 SW acceptance test this week. Accepted for 12m-array observations. Have been told we can start processing & delivering PI 12m observations (have 2 datasets used as part of test that are ready to go!). SW acceptance including ACA observations for another month (if array gets back on-line soon). Getting data to ensure acceptance of ACA will be a priority in coming weeks (once we get back on sky).
2. ASAC Items from 3 July telecon
   • Schedule for Calls for Proposals
3. F2F Meeting 16-17 September
   • ASAC meets 9-10 Oct.
     • ASAC Charges May 2013: Draft-ASAC-charges-2013-v4.2.docx
   • ANASAC Charges
4. ALMA Development (Wootten)
   • Callwas issued via eNews, direct email.
     • Thanks for reviewer nominations for Studies and Projects!
     • Nine studies proposals received from 8 PIs with teams totaling 41 investigators from 17 institutions. Total funding sought: $1.23M
     • 7 US PI proposals, one Taiwan/ASIAA and one Canada/HIA. Total sought: $1,234,761.08
5. NAASC during Early Science (Lonsdale)
   • People
     • Leslie Looney has finished his sabbatical at the NAASC; Paul Martini is in his final weeks; Chris Wilson has commenced her sabbatical at JAO.
     • Nathan Brunetti has joined as NAASC Data Analyst. A. Moullet has accepted a term Scientist position beginning in the Fall.
     • Daniel Espada has joined the JAO early July.
     • Ed Fomalont has received a Distinguished Performance Award from NRAO.
   • NAASC TV
   • For Cycle 1,
     • SW acceptance review held Tuesday. Sw has been accepted for Cycle1 12m observations. Some work-arounds in data reduction and Ph2 generation will be likely, but do not look too onerous. Sw including ACA acceptance anticipated in ~1mo.
     • All Contact Scientist assignments have made.
     • Focusing on batch 4 SBs; PI approval by June 10. Batch 5 released by JAO June 1.
     • in total 48 from Batch 1,2,3 approved by PIs.
   • 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.
     • Weblog workshop last month: requirements for user interface and documents.
   • Cycle 2 preparation
     • Continuing on revised schedule, 3 month delay. Call now forseen 24 Oct 2013, due 5 December. Technical HB being reviewed. OT phase1 tests next week.
     • Evaluating technical issues that tripped up or confused Cycle 1 proposers and correcting, updating materials and planning new materials if warranted. e.g. first video, about LAS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8WtLo9C9Q&feature=youtu.be
6. Astronomer Outreach (Lonsdale, Wootten)
   • Google calendars for ALMA Science and Training events now linked to from Science Portal (under Helpdesk link)
   • Next NAASC Workshop? Rachel, Douglas and Daniela volunteered for advisory committee; Topic: Assembly of Galaxies. SOC proposed.
   • Science Verification data: There are 21 refereed publications. 8 from NA first authors, 8 from EU first authors, 2 from EA first authors, 3 from XX (Mexico) first authors. There are two papers on arXiv which will probably graduate to published (refereed) 1 NA authored and 1 EU authored.
   • Cycle 0 PI data as of 7 July: 22 refereed papers from Cycle 0 data, 21 from highest ranked proposals and one from a filler. There are 113 entries in the original list of Cycle 0 highest ranked proposals, so 19% are published (two were canceled). Of those,
     • NA accounts for six projects published, of 37 uncanceled highest priority. These are projects 142, 191, 206, 236, 243 and 958.
     • EU accounts for six projects published, of 35. These are projects 131, 259, 275, 294, 635 and 957.
     • EA accounts for 7 projects published, of 27, and one filler project published. These are projects 101, 108, 115, 199, 268, 467 and 648, with filler 121.
     • CL accounts for two projects published, of 10. These are projects 367 and 465.
   • PS telecon 12 July. Discussed development synchronization, planned science meetings, SAC plans.
     • The next overall ALMA Science Workshop was discussed. The first of these was in Washington in 1999; the second in Madrid in 2006; the third in Puerto Varas in 2012. It is proposed to hold the next one in late 2014 or early 2015 in Japan. EA are interested in this of course.
     • Regional workshops are planned:
       • ESO:
         • "3D2014: Gas and Stars in Galaxies - A Multi-Wavelength 3D Perspective" http://www.eso.org/sci/meetings/2014/3D2014.html March 10-14, 2014 ESO, Garching near Munich, Germany
         • Circumstellar Disks around Herbig stars (rough title), April 2014, Santiago (early planning)
         • Also: Community Days. 19-20 November Garching. Archive proposed to be covered.
       • NA:
         • 2013 IAU303 on the Galactic Center, Santa Fe, NM 30 Sep-4 Oct 2013 (not really ALMA).
         • 2014 AAS Meeting in Maryland outside Washington DC: ALMA Splinter session, NRAO Town Hall
         • 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting (13-17 February 2014). * 180 Minute Symposium: Technological Innovations and Their Impact on Astronomical Discovery (includes A. Peck on ALMA) * 180 Minute Symposium: From Dust and Molecules to Planets and Stars * 90 Minute Symposium: The Evolution of Galaxies in the Early Universe
         • 2014 Summer AAS Meeting: Boston TBD
         • 2014 NAASC Workshop Sep 14-18 2014 Charlottesville Topic will be the Assembly of Galaxies (roughly z~1 to whatever)
       • EA: Regional ALMA meeting Taipei, Taiwan, Japan, Korea 2-3 Sep 2013
       • Other (SPIE Obsy Ops June 2014, Montreal)
   • Planning a series of short webinars focused on specific topics
   • Will do a series of Community Days this summer / fall
   • Cycle 2 preparation outreach
     • Splinter session at AAS.
     • OT-focused webinars (90 min)
     • New set of reference simulations
   • Special session at winter 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
   • 15 August 2013
   • Proposed dates for 2013 telecons: 8/15, 10/17, 11/21, 12/19
8. Other Business
   • Senate Report 113-078 on the 2014 Appropriations Bill, which includes Science has positive words for LSST and Radio Astronomy.

Science Corner

1. Memos and papers of note
   • NAASC Memo No 113 Relative Integration Times for the ALMA 12-m, 7-m, and Total Power Arrays by Brian S. Mason & Crystal Brogan (NRAO). Soon to be ALMA Memo No 598.
   • Imaging of the CO Snow Line in a Solar Nebula Analog Qi et al. (Cycle 0 data)
   • Press Release
   • ALMA imaging of the CO snowline of the HD 163296 disk with DCO+ Mathews et al. (SV data)
2. Science Workshops and Meetings
   • Recent
     • Seventh NAIC/NRAO Single-Dish Summer School Arecibo. 10-17 July 2013
     • IAU Symposium No. 303 The Galactic Center Santa Fe 30 Sept - 4 Oct
3. ALMA Papers (choose ALMA) 53 and counting (more on arxiv not yet listed here)
4. Some recent ALMA presentations:
   • AAS Plenary session talk by NRAO Director Beasley
   • NealFest 'Recent ALMA Results'
   • NAASC data reduction workshop (pdf)
   • NAASC data reduction workshop (ppt)
   • ALMA Results for AUI Board
   • ALMA Science Conference presentations now being populated.
   • The Interstellar Medium in High Redshift Galaxies Comes of Age Charlottesville, Virginia, 13-15 September 2012. Proceedings now published.

Events of Interest

Upcoming, very recent, or ongoing Meetings

1. ALMA Science Meetings
2. ALMA Training Events

• ASAC Charges May 2013: Draft-ASAC-charges-2013-v4.2.docx

• ALMA Report CSV and SciOps May 2013: ALMAReportCSV_SciOps-May2013.txt

• ANASAC Charges: ANASACStandingCharges.txt