ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee

  • Sunset over construction of the ALMA Residencia at the OSF. Photo by Pablo Carillo (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO):
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Contact Information for those calling in.

* Call date: 2015-9-03 3:30 pm EDT or 19:30 UT (Thursday (Friday in Taipei))
  • Duration: 1 hr
    * USA Number: 1-866-692-4538
  • Outside USA +1-517-466-2084
  • Passcode: 9480444#
  • Leaders: R. Osten, P. Jewell, A. Wootten
  • CV Room: 331


  • Attendees:

Topics

  1. Old Business
  2. New Business under Discussion.

Discussion Items

  1. NAASC (Jewell)
  • Transitions
    • John Carpenter will be leaving ASAC and ANASAC to assume his new role as Observatory Scientist.
    • Rachel Osten proposed for his seat on ASAC.
    • Replacement for Rachel's position as chair of ANASAC needed.
    • We are also moving ahead with filling vacancies on ANASAC.
    • John Hibbard will be stepping down as NA ARC Manager around 1 Oct. Interviewing for replacement.
  • Cycle 2 Project & Data Delivery Status
    • Please see attached ppt prepared by John H. on Cycle 2 project completion projections and data delivery status
    • Summary
      • Cycle 2 project completion projection is ~81% (JEH projection, with assumptions shown)
      • About 50% of NA OUSs have been delivered to PIs with another ~20% in the queue (in process or awaiting assignment)
  • ALMA Construction
    • Vertex Antenna Plan
      • Two Vertex Antennas, one with good surface vs temp performance (DV06) and one with out-of-spec performance (DV09) were equipped with an array of thermocouples in the receiver cabin and yoke arms.
      • Temp measurements were logged in conjunction with a series of astro-holography measurements using these two antennas and two additional "control" antennas
      • Temp data is being compared with assumptions of thermal models used to construct antennas, namely that telescope structure was at uniform ambient temp, and cabin was at a different uniform temp maintained by the HVAC system.
      • Any gradients found will be modeled by Vertex to determine if they can account for surface rms / astigmatism departures observed (principally at low temps)
  1. Program Scientist (Wootten)
    • September eNews copy for ALMA
      • Additional SV data on M100 (combining 12m array, ACA and TP data) and 3C238 (polarization) was published at end of July.
    • Right now on the array: It is Cycle 2 the final EoC week.
      • Weather conditions last night: Wind speed: 1.1 - 11.3 [m/s], PWV: 2.9 - 4.2 [mm], Temperature: -4.5 - 2.5 [°C] (all 13 executions at 3mm, 82% efficiency)
      • Several antennas have now been moved to the extremities of the array in preparation for the 2nd Long Baseline Campaign.
    • ALMA Proposal Review process redux (a report on Cycle 3 will appear soon in the Science Portal)
    • ACA query from Deputy Director S. Corder.
    • ASAC f2f meeting October 14-15, 2015, in Mitaka, Japan
    • Development: The deadline for submissions in response to the ALMA/NA Call for Development Studies issued in March was 12 June. 15 valid proposals were received from 56 proposers representing 20 institutions requesting a total of $2.528M; $1M is available. The proposals have been reviewed and ranked by referees as nominated by ANASAC. The funded studies are expected to begin on 1 October 2015.
    • ANASAC, NAASC Meetings and Workshop
      • Next NAASC Workshop. Molecular gas beyond the Milky Way: astronomy and astrochemistry in extragalactic environments April 4-8 2016, Charlottesville in process.
      • ALMA Conference
        • Tokyo: Proceedings were submitted last month. NAOJ approved color printing of the 350 page volume.
        • Next one in the US at a place and Time to be determined (Sept 2016 timeframe) Last one was 1999. Looking at venues in S. California.
      • Others of note:
      • 2016 AAAS Annual Meeting(12-15 February 2016, Washington).
        • 180 Minute Symposium: Planet Formation Seen With Radio Eyes speakers Meredith Hughes, Andrea Isella, & David Wilner.
      • 256 ALMA publications in refereed journals so far.
  2. Science Operations (Lonsdale)
    • Timed Out projects - PIs have been notified. Incomplete datasets will be delivered.
    • Data processing: see John's charts.
    • The first batch of Cycle 3 SBs are now being prepared: long baseline studies
  3. Astronomer Outreach
  4. Date of next meeting
    • Late Sep 2015? (TBC)
    • Proposed dates for 2015 telecons: late September, 5 Nov. Comments please.
  5. Other Business

Science Corner

  1. Memos and papers of note
CONFLICT original 6:
    • A revision of North American ALMA Science Center Memo 110 – ALMA Data Rates and Archiving at the NAASC – has been posted online. Memo 110 describes the data flow plans for ALMA, as revised based on recent experience. It is shown that 200 TB/year remains a good estimate of the steady-state data rate, and a data link speed between Chile and the ALMA Regional Centers (ARCs) of 100 Mb/sec will be sufficient for the next decade. It is recommended that the ALMA Observing Tool warning on observational data rates be removed, though observers should still be prompted to keep datasets to workable sizes.
    • North American ALMA Science Center Memo 115 has been posted online: Doubling the Bandwidth of the 64-Antenna ALMA Correlator, by R. Escoffier, R. Lacasse, J. Greenberg, A. Saez, A. Baudry, J. Webber. Memo 115 describes a method of doubling the bandwidth of the baseline ALMA correlator. The proposed approach is to use the present correlator infrastructure as much as possible, but replace most of the circuit cards. This approach will minimize hardware costs, software development costs, and ALMA operations disruptions.
CONFLICT version 8:
    • A revision of North American ALMA Science Center Memo 110 – ALMA Data Rates and Archiving at the NAASC – has been posted online. Memo 110 describes the data flow plans for ALMA, as revised based on recent experience. It is shown that 200 TB/year remains a good estimate of the steady-state data rate, and a data link speed between Chile and the ALMA Regional Centers (ARCs) of 100 Mb/sec will be sufficient for the next decade. It is recommended that the ALMA Observing Tool warning on observational data rates be removed, though observers should still be prompted to keep datasets to workable sizes.
    • North American ALMA Science Center Memo 115 has been posted online: Doubling the Bandwidth of the 64-Antenna ALMA Correlator, by R. Escoffier, R. Lacasse, J. Greenberg, A. Saez, A. Baudry, J. Webber. Memo 115 describes a method of doubling the bandwidth of the baseline ALMA correlator. The proposed approach is to use the present correlator infrastructure as much as possible, but replace most of the circuit cards. This approach will minimize hardware costs, software development costs, and ALMA operations disruptions.
CONFLICT end
  1. Press Releases
  2. ALMA Papers (choose ALMA)

Events of Interest

2015
 
 
 
 
 
Oct 1 2015
 
Start of Cycle 3 observing seasons
 

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

-- AlWootten - 2015-08-24
Topic attachments
I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
AAS_Workshop_2016_proposal_submit.pdfpdf AAS_Workshop_2016_proposal_submit.pdf manage 39 K 2015-09-03 - 10:34 AlWootten Next Generation Very Large Array Workshop 2016
AEDM_2015-056-O_ASAC_Charges_(def).pdfpdf AEDM_2015-056-O_ASAC_Charges_(def).pdf manage 99 K 2015-08-24 - 15:13 AlWootten ASAC Charges for October 2015 meeting in Mitaka
ForANASAC_2015Sept01.pdfpdf ForANASAC_2015Sept01.pdf manage 605 K 2015-09-03 - 14:59 PhilJewell Cycle 2 Completion Projection & Data Delivery Status - 1 Sep 2015
Principles_of_Proposal_Review_Process-v6.pdfpdf Principles_of_Proposal_Review_Process-v6.pdf manage 525 K 2015-08-24 - 15:12 AlWootten Principles of the ALMA Proposal Review Process (Rev6)
Proposal_for_ACA_stand_alone_operational_model_and_executive_balance.pdfpdf Proposal_for_ACA_stand_alone_operational_model_and_executive_balance.pdf manage 45 K 2015-08-24 - 15:12 AlWootten Proposal for ACA: Stand alone operations and Executive Balance
Topic revision: r11 - 2015-09-03, PhilJewell
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