ASAC Telecon memo:  Onishi-san's Notes
9th September 2009

Attending: Bally, Johnstone, Johnson, Baker, Afonso, Kuno, Momose, Onishi, Morita, Hills, Nyman
Apologies: Blain, Nagar, Gueth

Agenda: [[ASAC8Sept09Agenda][https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/ASAC8Sept09Agenda]]

1. Membership
- See agenda
- Check the web page whether the information is correct or not.
 [[http://www.almaobservatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=44&limit=1&limitstart=1]]


2. Project report
- Status report: [[https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/pub/ALMA/ASAC8Sept09Agenda/ALMA_Status_Sept09.pdf][https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/pub/ALMA/ASAC8Sept09Agenda/ALMA_Status_Sept09.pdf]]
- Testing interferometry with two antennas at 3mm wave length
- Construction is proceeding.  Delay to computer room at the OSF
- The northern most pads will move to south near the guard house due to security reason.
 + North-South configuration gets shorter, East-West slightly larger
 + Beam slightly elongated: only ~a few % change
- Place of power generators
 + Uphill from the antenna test site: Heat from power generator goes down to the site at night
 + This may disturb the seeing, which may affect the optical pointing measurements.
- European antennas coming
- Testing: http://www.alma.cl/~science/Test_Reports/
- MELCO antenna will be taken up to the high site on 17th Sep.

3. Schedule
- No major changes since last telecon.
- See agenda.
 + The possibility of purchasing additional antennas now seems to be ruled out
   under the new estimate of the total cost.

4. Reviews
- The review of the Plans Commissioning and Scientific Verification took place at the OSF on September 2nd and 3rd.
- The Implementation Plan for Operations will take place on September 29th and 30th in Santiago
 + Neil Nagar will attend the meeting as a member of ASAC
- Scientific Requirements document
 + Expected to be delivered to the ASAC around 20th Sep., before regional f2f meetings. 

5. Items for discussion
- The proposal for phasing-up ALMA for VLBI
 + Proposal: [[https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/pub/ALMA/ASAC8Sept09Agenda/Phasing_ALMA_for_VLBI.pdf][https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/pub/ALMA/ASAC8Sept09Agenda/Phasing_ALMA_for_VLBI.pdf]]
 + Suggestion to the Board 
    + We need more discussion with the proposers although we keen to do this.
    + The most important thing is to keep schedule for achieve baseline sciences of ALMA.
 + Can we this without damage ALMA schedule?
   + Especially software people may have to work with the proposers.
 + There will be a risk that the ALMA will not be included in the first detection.
 + Note to the Board was sent to ASAC people from Richard
 + A description "+50 antennas" seems to be somewhat vague, should be 64 or include ACA.
- Development plan
 + It was urgent for NSF decadal review.
 + Need discussion at f2f how we should proceed to realize development plans
   + Select development plans to be carried out, and issue a call for proposal
     for involving the development?: targeted call
   + Possible plans: Band 1, Band 5, Band 11, VLBI, and so on
   + ASAC decides the appropriate plans for the first round of proposals, and take
     back it to the Board??

6. Change requests
- Situation: Band 6 IF range from 4.5-10GHz to 6-10GHz
- Drawback: 12CO and 13CO can not be observed simultaneously.
  +If we set local freq. at 225GHz, both lines appear around 5-6 GHz,
    which will become outside of the specification with this CRE.
- Suggestion: Request lower receiver temperature out of the frequency.
  for example, for 5-6GHz band, ask the temperature below 136K.
         This may be possible if we see the figure, only few lines exceed this line.
  Band edge poor noise may cause instability even if we use this IF frequency.
- Opinion, comments:
 + Big hit.  Simultaneous observations in 12CO and 13CO would be very important.
 + The suggestion above seems to be reasonable in the current situation.
 + (as a counter argument): 12CO and 13CO have a big different brightness temperature.
    Observe 13CO at optimum IF frequency, and re-observe at 12CO also at the optimum frequency.
    This may reduce the observation time compared with simultaneous observations.
 + 12CO line is useful to detect outflow wings, whose intensity is comparable to 
   or even lower than 13CO, in this case the simultaneous observation would be very powerful.

7. Board charges
- See agenda: Board agreed these charges.
- Plans for the proposal review process may come soon.

10. and from the advisory committees
- ESAC
 + ESAC meeting on 12th of October.
- ANASAC
 + ANASAC meeting on 26th of Semptember
- EASAC
 + JSAC meeting on 28th of September

13. Next f2f meeting
- in Garching 2009 Oct 13-14th
- Check Leonardo's e-mail.

-- RichardHills - 2009-10-05
Topic revision: r1 - 2009-10-05, RichardHills
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