ALMA Update

1  Recent news

On the international front, the evaluation of the two prototype antennas at the VLA site in New Mexico has been completed. The results from this evaluation are being folded into the evaluation of the bids received in response to the call for tender for the 64 ALMA antennas. The high value of the antenna contract means that extraordinary attention is being paid to the evaluation process, as well as to the technical and management compliance of the bids to the call for tender.
Three of the four key positions in the Joint ALMA Office have now been filled. Dr. Rick Murowinski, until recently Deputy Leader of the Astronomy Technology Research Group in Victoria, has taken up the position of ALMA Project Engineer, placing a Canadian in a prominent ALMA role. Dr. Tony Beasley will officially begin his work as the ALMA Project Manager as of 15 September 2004, but is already actively involved in ALMA issues. The fourth position, that of ALMA Project Scientist, still remains to be filled and is in the process of being re-advertized.
Negotiations are continuing between the bilateral partnership and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) concerning Japan's entry into ALMA.
ALMA has begun to rent and outfit temporary office space in Santiago, with an eye towards having an office open by the end of October for the Director, other Key Personnel, local staff, etc. The Director and the Board are reviewing options for constructing a permanent office for ALMA in Santiago; both ESO and the Universidad de Chile have offered use of their land for this purpose.
The ALMA Project Plan is the top-level document describing ALMA and any changes to it must be approved by the ALMA Board. The current approved version from February 2003 is in the process of being extensively revised, particularly with an eye towards greater clarity regarding the principles governing ALMA in the operations era. The project has also developed a very detailed Operations Plan that has gone through numerous revisions and been commented on by many people, including the Board and the ASAC.
A North American ALMA Science Workshop was held at the University of Maryland May 14-15, 2004. The meeting began with two introductory talks, one by the ALMA Director, Massimo Tarenghi, and a second by the North American ALMA Project Scientist, Al Wootten. We then heard a series of excellent review talks on the four main science themes for ALMA: Galaxies and Cosmology; Star and Planet Formation; Stars and Their Evolution; and Solar Systems Near and Far. After lunch the meeting broke into working groups focused on more detailed discussion of each of these themes. Each working group approached their discussion very differently, so it was interesting to hear the results from the different groups on the second morning. We also heard brief reports from other millimeter-wave instruments operating or planned and ended the meeting with a discussion of the plans for the North American ALMA Science Center.
There was good attendance and participation by Canadians at this meeting, including three Canadians currently in postdoctoral positions in the U.S. and Europe. The meeting in general had good participation by student, postdocs, and young faculty members, particularly from the Eastern U.S. For those of you who were unable to attend the meeting but are interested in learning more about ALMA science and status, a number of the presentations from the meeting are temporarily available via links to the agenda at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/May/Presentations/agenda.html

2  ALMA Science Advisory Committee

The ALMA Science Advisory Committee (ASAC) held a face-to-face meeting May 10-11, 2004 in Cambridge, UK. The primary focus of the meeting was on five charges from the ALMA Board concerning: total power and phase stability; the calibration plan, particularly relative and absolute amplitude calibration; plans for Early Science with ALMA; the ALMA Operations Plan; and the prioritization of the ALMA Science Software Requirements. The ASAC also heard presentations on the status of the plans for the Atacama Compact Array and the status of the work on the 183 GHz water vapour radiometers.
The final report from the ASAC has been passed on to the ALMA Board for consideration at their meeting at the end of June. I will summarize the main conclusions from the report in my fall 2004 update.

3  ALMA Developments in Canada

3.1  Community Outreach

The Canadian ALMA Science Steering Committee has recommended for some time now that we construct a web page for the Canadian ALMA community. Robin Phillips has begun construction of such a web page which collects ALMA links that may be particularly useful to Canadians as well as some Canadian-specific ALMA information all in one place. There is a lot of information on ALMA on the web already, so the intent is not to reinvent the wheel but to make it easier for someone interested in ALMA to find information and documents that may be particularly relevant. The page is fairly basic so far but I encourage you to have a look at it and send me any suggestions for additional information you think should go on it. You can find it at
http://www.almatelescope.ca
We will also be setting up a Canadian email list to be used to distribute timely news and information on ALMA. If you would like to be added to this list, please send an email to wilson@physics.mcmaster.ca.

3.2  Band 3 Receiver Development

Work at HIA on the Band 3 project is continuing on schedule. The ALMA Band 3 instrumentation project completed a major milestone in late March 2004 when it passed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR). The 11 international reviewers and observers were impressed with the team's achievements. Special commendation was given by the review committee to good progress and results in four core areas of development: Amplifier Design, Mixer Performance, Test Equipment, and Mechanical Design.
A full-scale mockup of the cartridge has been assembled in Victoria amid a general feeling of satisfaction on seeing many of the disparate pieces of the system together for the first time. Over the next several months, the Band 3 Team will focus their effort on the construction of the first pre-production cartridge. Assembly and testing of individual receiver components such as the sideband separating mixer and IF amplifier will be completed by July this year. The final assembly of the preproduction cartridge and the end-to-end testing of the receiver is scheduled to begin this August. The first preproduction receiver cartridge is scheduled to be delivery to the North American Front End Integration Center in January 2005.
For more information please contact the Band 3 Project Scientist, Doug Johnstone (doug.johnstone@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca).

3.3  Software

Raymond Rusk attended the Protopipeline Code Review Meeting in Socorro, NM held May 3-4. The purpose of the meeting was to review the current protopipeline code base and plot out a strategy for how it should evolve over the next year. The goal of the protopipeline project has been to provide a prototype pipeline processing capability for ALMA using ALMA Common Software (ACS) as the framework and AIPS++ data processing components.
Chris Wilson was the sole tester in the first user test of the ALMA Pipeline. The test focussed on the ability of the prototype pipeline to process data automatically through calibration and imaging and finished successfully in early May 2004. Planning is already underway for the second user test of the Pipeline, which will focus on the heuristics required to do automatic flagging of bad data in observations of calibrator sources. She has also done substantial work on producing a finer level of detail in the Science Software Requirements for the Pipeline, which will be required to monitor progress during the ALMA Construction phase.
Chris Wilson wilson@physics.mcmaster.ca
Canadian ALMA Project Scientist
(with contributions from Jim Hesser, Doug Johnstone, Lewis Knee, and Raymond Rusk)


File translated from TEX by TTH, version 3.40.
On 15 Jun 2004, 21:35.