SCIENCE IPT 8.1 Commissioning and Science Verification The month of May was extremely productive for the CSV team despite some complications. Winter-like weather arrived sooner than expected resulting in effectively three completely lost nights and several nights following with highly reduced numbers of array elements. Three complete nights were lost to power failures and an additional four nights had highly reduced numbers of array elements, because of the late April outage, other power works, and the subsequent outage in early May. Overall, CSV was on the sky ~70% of the time scheduled because of these issues. Unfortunately the additional time spent operating with reduced element availability had an impact on the software testing as many of the problems being experienced over the past few months were related to operating three arrays with cycle 1-like numbers of array elements. Despite those challenges, which effectively resulted in two weeks in which it was not possible to focus on the fundamental software issues, there was significant progress. Handover time continues to be reduced over the December through early March levels. The average handover time was 1.375 hours, consistent with the previous month. The number of full system restarts now averages about 0.6 per night rather than the >1.5 seen in March. The time taken for the full system restarts is also typically reduced with end-to-end times now typically ~40 minutes rather than the 1.5 hours. Further improvements are possible but already things are reduced by significant factors. By month’s end, it was possible to verity the operations of three arrays simultaneously for extended periods of time with near cycle 1-like numbers of antennas. With computing, several long standing issues were resolved, related to proper motions and ephemeris objects, culminating in data collection for a DDT proposal to observe a passing comet. The final verification of viable software for cycle 1 observing modes was hampered largely by the availability of array elements. Of the 29 nights assigned to CSV for the month, only one was available with the nominal cycle 1 numbers of antennas, 43, or more. An additional nine nights were available with close to the required number of antennas, i.e., greater or equal to 40. The consistency of the nights with 40 or more antennas for cycle 1-like verification with the weather/power problems is clear. Engineering is taking steps to optimize the procedures to maximize array element availability both in general and in the face of such problems. Science requires and anticipates continued improvement because CSV hopes to have six dedicated array elements for testing long baselines while DSO requires 43 working array elements for cycle 1 observing. 8.1.1 New Capabilities Utilizing in-house and visiting resources, the group focused its attention on finalizing several remaining cycle 1 issues and basic cycle 2 capability goals. Spectral scans received some attention and a need was found to improve calibration methods. Luckily, this capability was already delivered by software in the candidate release for cycle 1, so testing was begun without new software capabilities. Unfortunately, the visitor working on this area departed on a low note as the power outage largely disrupted his second shift on site. The hope is to pick this study back up with the arrival of a new, longer-term, visitor in early July. There was initial success with the 1 km. array verification and two candidate science verification targets have been selected from last year’s list. It was possible to integrate the antennas into the array and to determine reasonable antenna positions for them. Satoki Matsushita arrived to assist the work on the 1 km. and 3 km. commissioning. Significant progress on the 3 km. baselines was hampered by problems with the fast switching and water vapour radiometer (WVR) corrections on fast time scales. Progress towards offering continuum polarization continues. A decision was made on the field of view allowable and work is currently underway on defining the details of the time estimates and performance limitations for the cycle 2 call for proposals. Science verification observations for execution in the coming two months are being considered. Running observations with more than 42 antennas in the baseline correlator advanced but clean, stable signal from more than 45 antennas has not yet been seen. This is due to a combination of issues, most specifically the availability of array elements and the delay jumps which became more significant, but still at a low level for 32-antenna, cycle 1-like observations, when corrective action was taken to solve a different problem. This remains a priority for cycle 2 offerings but it is at an acceptable level for cycle 1. Band 4 and 8 performance assessment is proceeding. The multiple spectral windows per baseband capability have been completed for some time now. Work was carried out to finalize some outstanding actions on ephemeris observations including Doppler correction, proper motion application and three-array operation. Finally, the now well-developed Observing Mode Regression Suite has been used extensively to identify limitations in the system, and DSO and CSV are collaborating on running and reducing this data to verify that science-like observations perform well with the running system. 8.1.2 Calibration Efforts continued on band-to-band phase transfer, fast switching with 10 second cycles, and online WVR correction, all as means of improving phase calibration, in general, but specifically for the upcoming and ongoing long baseline work. Issues with the fast switching, as well as antenna station availability, limited progress on 3 km. commissioning. The DSO’s software colleagues have already resolved most of the issues with flag application and work is now underway to determine why the data is flagged to begin with. Investigations into the limits of performance of WVR phase correction were led by Robert Lucas during his visit to Chile in late April to early May. Investigations revealed that phase transfer performance was dominated by systematic errors introduced in the WVR correction. The systematic errors were tracked down to known differences in the WVR devices themselves, specifically in terms of their frequency definitions and sky coupling efficiency. Applications of the proper values to the data were tested, and improved performance was found. In the end, these real values will be required to be written to the data, rather than the representative values currently used. Discussions are ongoing with software, as to when this improvement can be optimally scheduled. Phase transfer between bands was studied but there is some trouble being experienced in decoupling the instrumental effects from the atmosphere, given the limitations in the tuning/locking time. As a result of very welcome work by the DSO’s engineering and local software colleagues, it is expected in June that it may be possible to speed this up significantly and there is an expectation that this study - which will also support spectral scans as well- will move forward and be near or at specification for the time to change bands. If this proves effective, work can move forward on definitively characterizing the performance of the calibration mode with the final performance objectives in mind. 8.1.3 Science Observing Scripts (SOS) The month of May was largely a pause period for the SOS scripts, given that most of the team was on well-deserved science leave and/or vacation. Still some progress was made in two critical areas. First, work started on a new interface to the calibrator catalog. With this interface, queries that more efficiently select the best calibrator available can be better defined. These will not be available for cycle 1 but work is underway to improve the situation. Also, Robert Lucas helped finalize the improvements that will allow online WVR correction to be used when the full baseline correlator data rates are reached. The later is currently the highest priority for software development for the baseline correlator. 8.1.4 Array Group The array group implemented improved methods for measuring antenna positions at distant pads with an optimized data collection scheme. The previously discussed astroholography campaign began and a campaign has been partially completed to measure dish shapes and primary beams at bands 3, 6, 7 and 9 from ~70 degrees to 20 degrees elevation. It is critical that this finishes in June as the lead for this subproject will unfortunately leave ALMA. Finally, this group is finalizing the handover document for antenna pointing performance. Part of this work involves pushing forward automated routines for data reduction, ingestion and evaluation. Current procedures, defined several years ago, were not designed to deal well with 66 antennas. 8.2 ASAC ASAC had its monthly telecon on May 10th. ASAC discussed the round of ASAC charges from the board, and the plan of ALMA future science operation cycles, especially long duration issues of cycles 2 and 3. In the telecon, the JAO reported on ALMA commissioning status and Early Science status was reported. Regarding ALMA science operations, ASAC discussed the definition of proposal duplication. It was reported that the next ASAC f2f meeting would be held on October 9th -10th, in Edinburgh, UK. The ALMA Board approved this extraordinary request. It was also reported that Rob Ivison (Edinburgh/UK) is going to be the new chair of ASAC and Tomoharu Oka (Keio/JP) is also the new deputy chair from June 1st (Alberto Bolatto [Maryland/US] is continuing to serve as a deputy chair). 8.3 Staffing CSV thanks visitors Robert Lucas (Grenoble, visitor program), Tony Remijan (NA ARC), and Satoki Matsushita (ASIAA, visitor program) for their varied and important contributions. All three are former CSV team members in one way or another and the team was happy to see them back and thanks them for their efforts. Satoki will continue to contribute in June while Tony and Robert may return later this year. CSV staff continues to be heavily involved in public outreach efforts. These activities have included major news programs, complete with extended filming and interviews, and short visits with focused interviews. 10. SCIENCE OPERATIONS Cycle 0 No activity this month. Cycle 1 status Cycle 1 has been extended to May 31st, 2014. CSV, ICT and engineering activities had priority during May, to advance work on commissioning of cycle 1 capabilities and to improve infrastructure and overall system stability. Progress has been made both on commissioning of capabilities and stability improvements. Software tests have started and a test readiness review will take place in June. There are currently two major issues to solve before start of cycle 1 observations: 1) The availability of array elements. During cycle 1 tests typically fewer than 30 12m antennas and fewer than eight 7m antennas have been used. The number of available array elements must increase before cycle 1 PI observations start. Discussions are ongoing with construction/engineering on how to improve the situation. 2) The availability of antenna pads for the two most extended cycle 1 configurations. Currently only a subset of antenna pads is available for the extended configurations due to power and infrastructure issues. On the order of one third of the cycle 1 projects need the extended configurations, and if the pads do not become available during the next months, some cycle 1 high priority projects may not be executed. The power and infrastructure issues are under investigation and an outcome will be presented in June. By the end of May in total six cycle 1 director's discretionary time (DDT) proposals had been submitted: one was accepted, two were rejected and three are being reviewed. Cycle 2 preparations New timelines for cycle 2 were presented in the May 31st science portal news item. The cycle 2 call for proposals will be issued in October 2013. The submission deadline is in December, the proposal review meetings will take place in March 2014, and observing will commence in June 2014. The later start will facilitate commissioning of on-axis polarization and longer baselines. Preparations of cycle 2 user documents and software tools (in particular the OT) are ongoing. DSO Hiring Interviews took place for the selection of the operations astronomer position, and a job offer will be made. EA ARC The EA ARC employed a new postdoctoral fellow, Cynthia Herrera, on May 1st. Eiji Akiyama attended the pipeline WebLog meeting held in Socorro on May 7th-9th. An EA ARC Knowledge Transfer meeting was held for new comers after April 1st (Hiroko Shinnaga, Rie Miura, James Chibueze, and Cynthia Herrera) in Mitaka on May 7th-9th, including the data reduction QA2, P2G, Helpdesk tutorials. EU ARC The EU ARC has been engaged in preparing the annual European ARC meeting which includes the ESO ARC and the nodes. The participation of the EU nodes in commissioning has been planned, and four groups have been identified, Data with wrong Tsys have been ‘saved’ and delivered to PI. Liz Humphreys attended the pipeline WebLog pipeline meeting in Socorro on May 7th-9th. NA ARC Kim Scott and Tony Remijan participated in CSV campaigns for band-to-band transfer (Scott) and spectral scans (Remijan), and produced reports. Todd Hunter attended the pipeline WebLog pipeline meeting in Socorro on May 7th-9th. NAASC staff tested CASA 4.1.0 in advance of the May 30th release, and continued testing of pipeline flagging heuristics. Twenty-five astronomers and students attended a science workshop on ALMA band 2 that took place on May 29th-30th at the NAASC. The workshop was available via webcast and presentations are available at the workshop website (see https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/alma/naasc-workshops/alma-band-2-science-workshop for details).