1. ALMA
Current Status
ALMA
construction continues to ramp down. With the end of construction (and thus the
end of commissioning, which is a construction activity) approaching, a new
group has been formed called “Extension and Optimization of Capabilities
(EOC)”. The role of this group is to lead and increase ALMA’s instrumentational
capabilities, such as extended source polarization, long baseline observations,
and high frequency observing. As of April 1, 2014, ALMA moved to a mode of two
weeks of Early Science observations followed by one week of focused EOC
activities. The new EOC group is being led by Tony Remijan (on secondment from
NRAO) with Cat Vlahakis as his deputy.The software
required for ALMA Cycle 2 observing was accepted on May 30, 2014. This software
includes significant improvements in things like polarization, multi-resolution
correlator modes, and higher precision ephemeris tracking. At their
face-to-face meeting, the Pipeline Working Group recommended conditional
acceptance of the calibration pipeline by the Joint ALMA Observatory. The plan
is for much of Cycle 2 data calibration to be accomplished by the pipeline; the
pipeline will be critical to deal with the faster flow of data and larger data
sets in Cycle 2.Cycle 2 observing
began on June 3, 2014. There will be a break in Cycle 2 observing for 3 months
from September to November 2014 to focus on implementing observing on the
longest ALMA baselines. Such a break is needed because of the time required to
move antennas out to the largest configurations and the fact that once the
antennas are spread out to 5-10 km, the antennas remaining nearer the center of
the array are not sufficient to populate any of the Cycle 2 configurations.
There will be a second break of two months in February-March 2015 for the usual
engineering and computing activities; this break corresponds with some of the
worst observing conditions at the ALMA site associated with the altiplanic
winter.
Figure 1: 12
m and 7 m antennas in the compact centre of the ALMA array. Credit: ALMA
(NRAO/ESO/NAOJ) C. Padilla
2. ALMA
Cycle 2 has begun!
Results of
the Cycle 2 proposal review process were sent to the PI on April 9, 2014 and
the full list was released May 2, 2014. A full listing of the 353 highest
priority proposals is available here. Science
observing for ALMA Cycle 2 projects began on June 3, 2014 and will continue
until October 2015. The 12 meter array is currently in an extended
configuration (C32-5) and will move to the two more extended configurations by
August 2014. Observations in the more compact configurations of Cycle 2 will
take place after the long baseline commissioning campaign. PIs with projects
using the compact configurations can expect to be contacted by ALMA staff
during the next few months to review the Phase 2 setup for their projects.
Proposals for Director’s Discretionary Time with Cycle 2 capabilities can be
submitted at any time.Top priority
ALMA Cycle 1 projects that were not completed by June 2014 will carry over and
be observed during Cycle 2. This carry-over time is estimated to be 466 hours
and to involve 146 projects; these projects will be executed with a priority
intermediate between Cycle 2 “A” and “B” graded proposals (see ALMA
status report: March 2014). Cycle 1 filler projects that were not
completed will not be transferred to Cycle 2. Eleven filler projects were
completed in Cycle 1 and a further 22 obtained partial data.Unfortunately,
in the review for the Cycle 2 software, the software for the Total Power
observing mode was not accepted. Therefore, PIs of Cycle 1 Atacama Compact
Array projects that transfer to Cycle 2 will be asked whether the total power
component of the observations can be dropped without significantly affecting
their science goals. If so, these components will be descoped so that the
project can be completed earlier. All remaining total power observations
(including the components of Cycle 2 projects) will be delayed until the total
power software is accepted.
3. New
ALMA Science Verification Targets
Three new
ALMA Science Verification targets are listed on the Science Verification web
page. 3C286 is a polarization target. The Galactic protostar IRAS 16293 will be
observed in the CH3CN and CH3OH lines to demonstrate ALMA capabilities in Band
4 (2 mm). The luminous infrared galaxy NGC 3256 will be observed in the CO
J=4-3 transition to demonstrate ALMA capabilities in Band 8 (650 microns).
4. New ALMA papers since my last
update
Here is a summary
of the ALMA papers that have been published in the last three months. By my
count, there are now at least 113 refereed papers published using ALMA data,
either Cycle 0 data or Science Verification data. (A perk of years of writing
this eCass report is to point out that my first ALMA paper appears at the top
of this quarter’s list!)
- Wilson et
al. 2014, “Extreme dust disks in Arp 220 as revealed by ALMA”, ApJL, in
press
- Sanchez-Monge
et al. 2014, “A
necklace of dense cores in the high-mass star forming region G35.20-0.74N:
ALMA observations”, A&A, in press
- Takano et
al. 2014, “Distributions of molecules in the circumnuclear disk and
surrounding starburst ring in the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068 observed with
ALMA”, PASJ, in press
- Ricci et
al. 2014, “Brown dwarf disks with ALMA”, ApJ, in press
- Garcia-Burillo
et al. 2014, “Molecular line emission in NGC1068 imaged with ALMA. I An
AGN-driven outflow in the dense molecular gas”, A&A, in press
- Tokuda et
al. 2014, “ALMA observations of a high-density core in Taurus: dynamical
gas interaction at the possible site of a multiple star formation”, ApJL,
in press
- Lindberg et
al. 2014, “ALMA observations of the kinematics and chemistry of disc
formation”, A&A, in press
- Muller et
al. 2014, “An ALMA Early Science survey of molecular absorption lines
toward PKS1830-211 -- Analysis of the absorption profiles”, A&A, in
press
- Thomson et
al. 2014, “An ALMA survey of submillimetre galaxies in the Extended
Chandra Deep Field South: radio properties and the far-infrared/radio
correlation”, MNRAS, in press
- Tokuda et
al. 2014, “ALMA Observations of a High-density Core in Taurus: Dynamical
Gas Interaction at the Possible Site of a Multiple Star Formation”, ApJ,
789, L4
- Imanishi
& Nakanishi 2014, “ALMA Observations of Nearby Luminous Infrared
Galaxies with Various AGN Energetic Contributions Using Dense Gas
Tracers”, AJ, 148, 9
- Pineda et
al. 2014, “Resolved
Images of the Protoplanetary Disk around HD 100546 with ALMA”, ApJ,
788, L34
- Simpson et
al. 2014, “An ALMA
Survey of Submillimeter Galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South:
The Redshift Distribution and Evolution of Submillimeter Galaxies”, ApJ,
788, 125
- Higuchi et
al. 2014, “ALMA View of G0.253+0.016: Can Cloud-Cloud Collision form the
Cloud?”, AJ, 147, 141
- Xu et al.
2014, “ALMA Observations of Warm Molecular Gas and Cold Dust in NGC 34”,
ApJ, 787, 48
- Carpenter
et al. 2014, “An ALMA Continuum Survey of Circumstellar Disks in the Upper
Scorpius OB Association”, ApJ, 787, 42
- Lee et al.
2014, “ALMA Results of the Pseudodisk, Rotating Disk, and Jet in the
Continuum and HCO+ in the Protostellar System HH 212”, ApJ,
786, 114
- Combes et
al. 2014, “ALMA reveals the feeding of the Seyfert 1 nucleus in NGC 1566”,
A&A, 565, 97
- De Breuck
et al. 2014, “ALMA resolves turbulent, rotating [CII] emission in a young
starburst galaxy at z = 4.8”, A&A, 565, 59
- Wiklind et
al. 2014, “Properties of Submillimeter Galaxies in the CANDELS GOODS-South
Field”, ApJ, 785, 111
- McNamara et
al. 2014, “A 1010 Solar Mass Flow of Molecular Gas in the A1835
Brightest Cluster Galaxy”, ApJ, 785, 44
- Perez et
al. 2014, “Large-scale Asymmetries in the Transitional Disks of SAO 206462
and SR 21”, ApJ, 783, L14
- Van der
Marel et al. 2014, “Warm formaldehyde in the Ophiuchus IRS 48 transitional
disk”, A&A, 563, 113
- Decarli et al.
2014, “An ALMA Survey of Sub-millimeter Galaxies in the Extended Chandra
Deep Field South: Sub-millimeter Properties of Color-selected Galaxies”,
ApJ, 780, 115
- Hunt et al.
2014, “ALMA observations of cool dust in a low-metallicity starburst, SBS
0335-052”, A&A, 561, 49
I apologize
if I have missed any papers that should appear on this list.
5. ALMA
Meetings
There are two
major ALMA meetings and one workshop planned in the next year.Registration
is still open for “Transformational Science in the ALMA Era: Multi-Wavelength
Studies of Galaxy Evolution”, which will be held from August 4-7, 2014, in
Charlottesville, Virginia. The web site is https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/alma/naasc-workshops/alma2014/facilities/alma/naasc-workshops/alma2014/index“Revolution
in Astronomy with ALMA: The Third Year” will be held from December 8-11, 2014,
in Tokyo, Japan. Registration will begin in May and the deadline for abstracts
for oral contributions will be in late August, 2014. The deadline for poster
abstracts and payment will be in October 2014. The web site is http://www.almasc2014.jp/A NAASC
workshop on “The Filamentary Structure in Molecular Clouds” is planned for
10-11 October 2014 in Charlottesville Virginia. A web site for this conference
should be available soon.
6. Further
InformationA good source
for monthly updates on the ALMA project is the electronic NRAO newsletter http://science.nrao.edu/enews/. And
don't forget the ALMA observatory web site http://www.almaobservatory.org/ which contains wide range of information about the observatory, including
details about science and technology, infrastructure, geographical location. An email list
has been created for Canadian astronomers interested in ALMA. This moderated
list will periodically send out updates on ALMA's status, news of software
releases, notices of upcoming ALMA science meetings and workshops, etc., which
would be of interest to Canadian astronomers. Those who wish to be subscribe to
the alma-users list are encouraged to visit the web page http://lists.astrosci.ca/mailman/listinfo/alma-users or send an
email to Gerald.Schieven(at)nrc-cnrc.gc.ca. Chris Wilson
wilson(at)physics.mcmaster.caCanadian ALMA
Project Scientist(with
material from the NRAO newsletters and the ALMA web site) |