A new development study has introduced new methods to define and measure the maximum recoverable angular scale in ALMA observations. These methods will improve imaging quality and allow for better predictions for observation scheduling.

Contributed by Dirk Petry.

In June 2024, the ESO workshop "The Promises and Challenges of the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade" was held in Garching to introduce all details of this ambitious upgrade project to the user community (see the announcement in July's newsletter). Following this and in an effort to further advertise this upgrade to the community and the public in general, ESO has just released the video "ALMA's extreme makeover: the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade". You can watch the video here.

Contributed by Maria Diaz Trigo.

From Cycle 10, it has been possible to propose for joint VLT and ALMA observations. The first joint VLT/ALMA observing proposal has now been completed (prog ID 113.269Z, PI Benisty). Multi-epoch observations of a protoplanetary disc using VLT/SPHERE and ALMA revealed the suface and midplane layers of the disc. These observations aim to understand the mechanisms and timescale of cooling, which are critical to understanding disc evolution.

A study by the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD, Sweden) to develop new fabrication technology for sub-micron size Aluminium Nitride (AlN) barrier Superconductor Insulator Superconductor (SIS) junctions has been successfully completed. These SIS junctions are at the core of most ALMA receivers where the sky signal is mixed with the Local Oscillator to tune the receivers to the desired frequency. 

A development study aimed to validate and improve the current atmospheric radiative transfer model implemented for ALMA (atmospheric transmission model, ATM) has been successfully completed. The model is important for both planning and helping in the calibration of ground-based observations at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.