March 2015 ANASAC Telecon Notes

Attendees: Douglas Scott, Dick Plambeck, Alberto Bolatto, Rachel Osten, Karin Oberg, Al Wootten, Phil Jewell, James Di Francesco, Dan Marrone, Shep Doeleman, John Carpenter

1. NAASC (Jewell)

- New ASAC vicechair/ANASAC chair (John). ASAC Chair: Nagayoshi Ohashi, thanks to Alberto Bolatto for having done a great job as ASAC chair, representing NA. EU Vice Chair E. Schinnerer. Should ASAC and ANASAC leaders be the same person? Separate ANASAC Chair? Alberto from his experience believes they should be separate given the workload, and it works better when the load is distributed. This should be a committee decision. Committee will discuss online.

- Observations - Long Baseline Campaign SV data released, four science papers being prepared: - Paper #1 - An Overview Of The 2014 ALMA Long Baseline Campaign (lead: Ed Fomalont): will be submitted in a day or two - Paper #2 - ALMA Long Baseline Campaign Observations Of The Proto- Planetary Disk HL Tau (lead: Crystal Brogan): submitted to ApJ! - Paper #3 - ALMA Long Baseline Observations Of The Minor Planet Juno At 60 Km Resolution (lead: Todd Hunter): submitted to ApJ! - Paper #4 - ALMA Long Baseline Campaign Observations Of The Strongly Lensed Submillimeter Galaxy SDP.81 at z=3.04 (lead: Catherine Vlahakis): will be submitted in a day or two - some community papers have already been submitted to astro-ph - ES Observing to resume 31 March - things seem to be OK with software stability, array access, though weather was a problem in the last ES block - with Dec-Jan observing efficiency, ALMA should observe most A+B projects in Cy2, except those for which configuration will no longer be available - Science Portal news item being readied with details.

- ALMA Board Meeting at JAO 11-13 March 2015 - UC / ANASAC telecon held last week - nearly all the topics had to do with NRAO NA facility operations - Alberto: we have not quite succeeded in integrating the UC and ANASAC, need a more integrated agenda, though there are specific topics, there are also general topics that can be discussed by all. Phil: we propose an agenda and it gets iterated on with the committee. Alberto: software is a subject that can be dealt with by the entire committee. Phil: will promote integration in future meetings. - next face-to-face meeting 20-22 May in Green Bank

- Positions Open - The JAO is seeking an Observatory Scientist, please consider it and spread the word. Pick up the phone and talk to people? No "nibbles" to anyone yet contacted. Perhaps an "interim" could be appointed until this is filled - NAASC positions (1 tenure-track, ~2 scientist) in search/down-selection phase, coming up with shortlists

2. Program Scientist (Wootten)

- NRAO eNews due out later this week, ALMA portion is pretty final.

- Please check out the new ALMA Status page (on the Science Portal page, listed under Observing for now but will move closer to Project Tracker later), gives configuration, weather, status of ES blocks

- array is currently in the middle of scheduled maintenance shutdown, some ES may be done this month as tests - Science review - 196 (185) refereed papers published so far, 145 (137) Cycle 0. 10 (9) from Cycle 1 [8 regular plus two DDT], 1 (1) from Cycle 2. (parentheses numbers are from last telecon) - Fourteen refereed papers published in Jan and Feb journals

- ASAC f2f - Closeout summary available (see agenda attachments) - Full version final ASAC report for February meeting (see agenda attachments) - mm-VLBI was discussed, recommendation for urgency and getting policy worked out so this can be offered in Cycle 4 - Shep: any discussion of mm-VLBI prior to Cycle 4? Alberto: Probably very hard, not included in current expectation for Cycle 3. Shep: archiving the correlated data? Alberto: ALMA will archive those data. Shep: need access to test time to work out the problems, any discussion of future test time? Alberto: no comment on commissioning path. Al: proposes do a Science Ver- ification project on a "boring" quasar or something to do an E2E test. Shep: ASAC could make a recommendation that the APP receive test time with some priority. Alberto: are there problems? Shep: getting the time is not as easy as you might think. Douglas: this committee shouldn't micromanage the commissioning work. Alberto: work should adhere to the commissioning plan. Next steps? Shep: need to get January data back from Chile, look at them carefully and see what we have. Not sure if we are getting full phasing efficiency from ALMA. After that, new observations that will be hopefully scheduled in late spring/early summer on quasars. Those will be first long baseline VLBI detections, not in Band 6 but hopefully Band 3. - Recommendations in closing document about ALMA Development Plan (ALMA 2030) that Alberto will write, summarized in ASAC report

- ALMA Development Studies - FY 2014 Studies are closing out - one will be presented at Intl THz conference in Cambridge later this month - projects approved by ALMA Board are in progress: Fiber AOS-SCO has had data tests, some integration remains. APP tests done with VLBA. B5 Rx's begin arriving at OSF in April 2015. - Approval for Call for FY2015/16 Studies received, see Implementation plan, biggest amount available is $200K, $1M in total available - Cadence - ALMA Development Program Studies - Release Date for Call for Study Proposals: Recommend March 16 2015 - Informal Pre-proposal WebWorkshop: 25 March 2015 - Study Proposals Intent due by date: Recommend 15 May 2015 - Submit all questions about Call for Studies: Recommend by 1 June 2015 - Complete Proposals due by date: Recommend 12 June 2015 - Suggestions for referees please? Suggestions were very much appreciated last time - program was announced at AAS meeting, in eNews, release date timed for Int'l THz conference start. - studies will be due end of FY2016 - projects will be a year later, FY2017, having them at the same time didn't work too well, more interest in projects than studies - ALMA Cycle 2 SOS Awards New opportunity for applications circulated. Note that these allow funding for a student for about a year. Dan: currently only PI can apply? Maybe only one award*per project* is better? Rachel: on SOS committee, pretty sure she saw proposals where the requesting investigator is not the PI Dan: good to hear this. Over-subscription rate suggests that there is a good chance of getting these funds.

- ANASAC, NAASC Meetings and Workshop - Next NAASC Workshop. Need topic and time - ALMA Conference in Tokyo and Postdoc Symposium afterward were very successful. Should we have the next one in the US? Time? Last one was 1999. ASAC suggested May-Aug 2016? If so, need to start organizing soon. - 2015 AAAS Annual Meeting(February 2015) - 180 Minute Symposium: Galaxy Assembly held successfully - Ground and Space Observatories observing the Solar System (ESO/NAASC workshop 2-5 March 2015 in Santiago) - Star and Planet Formation in the Southwest Mar 23 – 27, 2015 Oracle, AZ - Others of note: - Intl Space TeraHertz Technology Meeting Cambridge MA week of March 16
    1. - Dissecting Galaxies Near and Far: High Resolution Views of Star Formation and the ISM Santiago, Chile, March 23 - 27, 2015 - "Icy Grain Chemistry for Formation of Complex Organic Molecules: From Molecular Clouds to Protoplanetary Disks, Comets and Meteorites" March
    2. - 7, 2015 at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Abstract Submission Deadline : January 30, 2015 - ALMA/Herschel Archival Workshop ESO Garching, April 15-17, 2015

3. Science Operations (Lonsdale/Wootten)

- 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, configuration, and Band, EOC summary - JAO is readying an article about projects that are likely*not* to be completed

- Cycle 3 planning: - pre-announcement posted to SP on Dec 8 and broadcast to registered NA users - Call/Deadline in Mar/Apr next year; panel meetings June in Japan; observing starts Oct 1., 12 month cycle, i.e., 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)

- NA Cycles 1 & 2 Data Reduction update (Jan 12): - Cycle 1: 198 HP projects in total. 143 (72%) with some SBs finished, 135 (68%) with some data delivered; 67 (34%) completely delivered. - Cycle 2: Cycle 2 HP Projects: 354 projects in total. 152 (43%) with some SBs finished, 78 (22%) with some data delivered; 17 (5%) completely delivered - our goal is to get all non-problematic completed OUS to PIs prior to Cycle 3 Call, NAASC is "drowning in data" and working hard to reduce the backlog - new software has been installed in the last few days to improve the synchronization with other archives, LBC data has put a lot of demand on the archive, ~3 TB downloaded recently

- Support to JAO: E. Fomalont & A. Remijan (long term EOC support), J. Di Francesco/K. Sheth/D. Brisben (AoD & EOC support Dec/Jan). CB/TH continuing support of LBC (papers & guides)

4. Astronomer Outreach

- Next NAASC Workshop

- Future Planning: - CDEs for ALMA Cycle 3 - Underway, one last week in UNAM, Morelia, Mexico - Radio Astronomy Summer School 2015: dates confirmed for summer school on single-dish + interferometry at the GBT -- July 5-14, with interferometry sessions running July 12-14, 50 participants - Alberto: plan to alternate betwen VLA and ALMA for summer school still on? Al: Yes, not possible to do it this year

5. Date of next meeting

- Previously set on 7 May 2015 but not likely to happen, Al will do another Doodle poll

- Currently proposed dates for 2015 ANASAC telecons: 2 Mar, 7 May, 2 Jul, 3 Sep, and 5 Nov.

6. Other Business

- no other business

-- AlWootten - 2015-03-02
Topic revision: r1 - 2015-03-02, AlWootten
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