ALMA Programme News

Band 1 Critical Design Review

On 19 and 20 January 2016, the CDR (Critical Design Review) for ALMA Band 1 was held in Taipei (Taiwan). Band 1 is one of the missing bands for ALMA, the other missing bands are Band 2, and Band 5 which is currently being installed at the array. NAOJ and ASIAA have been developing a Band 1 prototype cartridge and called for the CDR with an international review panel, including participation of experts from ESO, SRON and Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, to assess the readiness for series production. The panel was impressed by the achieved progress and indicated areas which would need some attention before embarking on a full scale production.

Natural Gas Pipeline for ALMA

ESO, on behalf of the ALMA partnership, is pursuing the construction of a natural gas pipeline from San Pedro de Atacama to the power generators at the OSF. Currently, the fuel for the ALMA power generators is brought to the OSF by trucks. A pipeline is a safer means of fuel transportation, and natural gas is a relatively clean and cost effective fuel for power generation.

Before being allowed and able to build the 24 km of pipeline, the detailed engineering and an Environmental Impact Study according to Chilean regulations need to be carried out. Both are currently underway.

European Development Projects

ALMA has a very active development programme in the partner regions and at JAO. On the European side, ESO funds the Band 5 full production and integration at OSF, with contributions from NRAO and NAOJ. Receiver cartridge construction is ongoing at GARD (Sweden) and NOVA (Netherlands), and the integration into cryostats and antennas is carried out in Chile. By now, a total of 14 Band 5 receivers have been installed on ALMA antennas and passed the verification process on sky. It is anticipated that Band can be offered for science in Cycle 5.

ESO also co-funded the OSF to Calama Fibre-Optic Connection project, managed by an ESO staff member on secondment to JAO. The connection was technically complete by end of 2014. The system is now used formally in testing mode, but at 100% functionality. Regulatory topics need to be settled by the contractor before routine start of use.

ALMA Upgrade Studies

Following the announcement on the previous Newsletter, we will provide regular updates and information on various developments under study in Europe. This issue we focus on the status of the development of ALMA Band 2-3.

We also would like to draw the attention of the readers to the new Call for ALMA Upgrade Studies that ESO expects to release in May 2016, and to the Submm Instrumentation Development Workshop that will take place in Gothenburg on May 25–27, 2016.

ALMA Band 2/3 Development

The ultimate goal of this development study is the design and production of a wide band receiver cartridge covering both band 2 and 3. This requires, among others, development of suitable optics components and active (amplifier) devices. In Europe, work continues on a cartridge prototype, in a collaborative effort involving ESO, INAF (iALMA project), STFC (RAL and University of Manchester) and University of Chile with contributions from NAOJ.

In the last quarter of 2015, the teams involved in the project assembled a warm testbed for the passive components in the ESO labs and carried out performance characterization tests. The efforts were met with excellent results and different designs of horn and OMT were shown to meet demanding ALMA specifications across the full frequency range 67-116 GHz. Improved prototypes, based on the experience gained in the lab testing, are being produced by INAF and University of Chile and will be tested in the cooled prototype setup that is being assembled.

After demonstrating the performance of the passive components in the warm environment, the Band 2-3 project is now developing a full cryogenic prototype receiver. The system will include an ALMA compliant downconverter developed at STFC-RAL and Low Noise Amplifiers being designed by the University of Manchester and produced as part of a collaboration with Caltech/JPL.

This new receiver will allow ALMA to address key science in the areas of complex organic molecules and the pre-biotic chemistry of the cold interstellar medium and to study the interstellar medium of galaxies at high redshift (e.g. Beltran et al. 2015, arXiv:1509.02702; and Fuller et al. 2016, arXiv:1602.02414). As an example, in Fig. 2, we show the prediction for the emission of Glycine in cold pre-stellar cores (Jimenez-Serra et al. 2014, ApJ 787, L33).

Upcoming ALMA or ALMA-related Meetings

• German ALMA Community Days 2016
  Bonn, Germany, 6 - 8 April 2016

  The next Call for Proposals for observing time with ALMA (Cycle 4) will be issued in March 2016 with a deadline of 21 April 2016. To prepare the local astronomical community for Cycle 4, the German ARC node organizes the German ALMA Community Days 2016 at the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie in Bonn on 6-8 April 2016.
  Registration is now open! Workshop places will be assigned on a "first come, first served basis".

• IRAM Science Software User Meeting 2016
  Grenoble, France, 6 – 8 April 2016

  IRAM will organize a science softwareusers meeting from 6 to 8 April 2016. The IRAM Science Software team will present the projects that were developed in the past 5 years and driven by the advent of wide bandwidth, wide-field, high angular resolution data cubes with (sub)-millimeter instruments as NOEMA or the 30-m, but also by ALMA, Herschel, APEX, and SOFIA.

• ALMA Proposal Preparation Day 2016
  Bologna, Italy, 11 – 12 April 2016

  In preparation to the ALMA Cycle 4 proposal submission deadline of April 21st, the Italian node of the European ARC is organizing an "ALMA proposal preparation day" to support the ALMA users to prepare their proposals. During this meeting we will present short tutorials on the ALMA Observing Tool and on proposal preparation. Most of the time will be dedicated to the interaction of the participants with the ARC staff to get support in preparing their own proposals for ALMA Cycle 4.

• Radio Interferometry: Methods and Science
  Bonn, Germany,  April – July 2016

  The course "Radio Interferometry: Methods and Science", held in English at the university of Bonn in April-July 2016, offers a hands-on overview of major aspects of radio/mm/submm interferometry for master students, PhD students and senior astronomers. The course also comprises a CASA tutorial.
  We will offer remote access to the lectures and tutorials on a best efforts basis. If you would like to follow the course from a remote location, please contact us before 1 April.

• Resolving Planet Formation in the Era of ALMA and Extreme AO
  ESO Vitacura, Santiago, Chile, 16 – 20 May 2016

  Results from ALMA Long Baseline observations and from SPHERE, Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) and other high-contrast adaptive optics instruments have given a taste of what to expect over the next few years in the fields of protoplanetary and debris disks, and planet formation. For the first time observations of the regions where planets form are achievable. The workshop will discuss the state-of-the-art results, offering a panchromatic view, with a balance between observations and theory.

• Discs in Galaxies
  ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 11 – 15 July 2016

  The aim of this conference is to explore the importance of stellar and gaseous discs in a variety of galaxies from high redshift to the Milky Way within the context of new observations and numerical simulations. Stellar and gaseous discs represent the most important structural component in normal galaxies and interpreting their early formation and destruction, via observations and numerical simulations, indicates the key processes that shape the eventual Hubble sequence.
  This conference is timely given the current investment in high resolution instrumentation, which probes the resolved properties of distant galaxies, and the increased detail in our understanding of stars and gas in nearby galaxies and the Milky Way. It will provide a wide ranging exploration of discs in galaxies from observational and theoretical aspects. More details on the webpage.

• Half a Decade of ALMA: Cosmic Dawns Transformed
  Indian Wells,  USA, 20 –23 September 2016
  

  This international four-day conference will highlight ALMA results at the threshold of the array's fifth year of science operations and bring together researchers from around the world to motivate collaborations for ALMA Cycle 5. Science topics will include all fields of astronomy, from cosmology and galaxies in the distant Universe, nearby galaxies and the Galactic Center, interstellar medium and star formation in our Galaxy, astrochemistry, circumstellar disks, exoplanets, solar system, stellar evolution, and the Sun.