資料7-JActivity Report of Commission JNovember 2013 to March 2014
March 26, 2014
Kenta Fujisawa (Yamaguchi University)

ALMA projectMar 03, 2014 All NAOJ ALMA Receivers Shipped OutOn February 18, the NAOJ Advanced Technology Center shipped out the last seven
ALMA Band 10 receivers to Chile. This marks the completion of delivery of a total 219
receivers for three frequency bands developed by NAOJ.
The development and production were complete in December 2013 (See "Completion ofthe ALMA Receiver Development" on Dec 27, 2013 on Latest News) After this, the receivers
had preliminary in-house acceptance tests, packing, attachment of shock logger to record theshock given to the product during transport, and applicable
export procedures. On the day of the last shipping, members of
the Band 10 development team saw off the receivers containedin a shipping case and loaded on a truck, saying goodbye tothem.
The picture shows Yasunori Fujii, a research engineer anda member of the Band 10 development team, during packing ofa receiver in a metal transport container.

Latest scientific topics:1.

Mar 10, 2014 Crashing Comets Explain Surprise Gas Around Young Star? ALMA reveals
an enigmatic gas clump in debris disk around Beta Pictoris
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)
telescope in northern Chile have today announced the discovery of an unexpected clumpof carbon monoxide gas in the dusty disk around the star Beta Pictoris. This is a surprise,as such gas is expected to be rapidly
destroyed by starlight. Something - probably
frequent collisions between small, icy
objects such as comets - must be causing thegas to be continuously replenished. The newresults are published today in the journal
Science.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/F. Reddy

2.

Jan 17, 2014 ALMA Discovers a Formation Site of a Giant Planetary System
A team of Japanese astronomers has obtained a firm evidence of formation of agiant planetary system around a young star by the observations with the Atacama Large321資料7-J

Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This result has a transformative impact on thetheories of planet formation and gives us a clue to the origin of a wide variety of planetarysystems.
The research team, led by astronomers at Osaka University and Ibaraki
University, observed a young star named HD142527 in the constellation Lupus (the Wolf)
with ALMA. The ALMA image shows that cosmic dust, which is component material ofplanets, is circling around the star in a form of asymmetric ring. By measuring the densityof dust in the densest part of the ring, the astronomers found that it is highly possible thatplanets are now being formed in that region. This region is far from the central star, about
5 times larger than the distance between the Sun and the Neptune. This is the first firm
evidence of planet formation found so far from the central star in a protoplanetary disk.
The research team plans further observations of HD142527 with ALMA for closer
investigation, as well as other protoplanetary disks to have a comprehensive understandingof the planet formation in general.
Figure. Dust and gas disk around HD142527. The
dust and gas distributions observed by ALMA are
shown in red and green, respectively. Near-infrared
image taken by the NAOJ Subaru Telescope is shownin blue. The image clearly shows that the dust isconcentrated in the northern (upper) part of the disk.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NAOJ, Fukagawa et al.

Activities of meetings
Symposium of Radio Astronomy Forum 2013
Date: 18 – 19 December 20013
Place: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka
Overview: The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is an international effort to build theworld’s largest radio telescope, with a square kilometre (one million square metres) ofcollecting area. The scale of the SKA represents a huge leap forward in both engineering andresearch & development towards building and delivering a unique instrument, with the detailed
design and preparation now well under way. As one of the largest scientific endeavours inhistory, the SKA will bring together a wealth of the world’s finest scientists, engineers andpolicy makers to bring the project to fruition. In Japan, a SKA consortium is formed andpreparation research and basic development by a volunteer are furthered since 2008. SKA wasproposed as a master plan of Science Council of Japan in 2013, and discussions of futurecontribution has been started.
At this symposium, the update status of SKA, a scientific result to aim at, and the activity
in Japan were reported and discussed. The target of this symposium were the common322

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understanding on the result which SKA would bring about to the local radio astronomy
community and its scientific importance. Also how SKA is treated as large-sized futureplanning of Japanese radio astronomy was discussed.
VLBI Consortium Symposium 2013
Date: 24-26 December 2013
Place: Tsukuba University, General Research Building B, room 110
URL: http://aobs.frsc.tsukuba.ac.jp/~nagai/vlbi_symp/

ALMA Workshop on Long Baseline and Phase Correction
Date: 25-26 December 2013
Place: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka
Overview: The proposal for ALMA Cycle 2 was closed, and the results of Cycle 0 have been
also published one after another. The efforts for upgrading the performance of ALMA has been
also continued. There is a strong requirement of "realization of a long baseline" that exceeds 10
km is now as one of the most important development items. In order to realize a long baselineand high spatial resolution (0.01 arcsecond which is the final target of ALMA), an
understanding of the influence of atmospheric effect on the millimeter and submillimeter wave
observation, including realization of a phase compensation is indispensable. Hence we held
"ALMA Workshop on Long Baseline and Phase Correction" in National Astronomical
Observatory Mitaka for discussing these topics.

Workshop on the Radio Astronomical Application of JAXA Telecommunication Antenna
Date: 7 January, 2014
Venue: ISAS/JAXA Conference room A 2F
Aims and Scope: JAXA is employing antennas including Usuda 64 m for deep spacecommunication. These antenna also can be used for the radio observation of planetaryscience and radio astronomy. So far, the signal transmission system for VLBI and therecord system are mainly used for these observations. Here we held a workshop for
discussing about the current situation of these equipment, and future capacity utilizationand common use.

Millimeter and submillimeter radio wave receiver workshop
Date: 3-4 March 2014
Place: Ibaraki University, Interview Studio
Overview: The target of this workshop is development of component and engineerings, such as:receiver development, detection element and an element manufacture process, optical system
and antenna, oscillator, HEMT amplifier, cooling technology, integration, and the intensity
calibration technique. It would be a topic that the result of application of such technology. It is323

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also the purposes to communicate the space observation project in universities and research
institutions and to offer the place of information exchange about next-generation equipment
strategy and subject.
Recently astronomical research project are tend to be internationalized and large-sized,
like ALMA, satellite, large ground telescope, etc. Also the international competition isincreasing further. This workshop is only the domestic workshop in this field. Every year, notonly a researcher but also graduate students and corporate-relations persons gathered, anddiscussed on the technology of the millimeter wave to terahertz wave. Hence we would like tohold this year also, we are pleased if you can participate in this workshop.

General Meeting of Radio Astronomy Forum
Date: 21 March 2014
Place: International Christian University324