Welcome to the third
European ALMA Regional Centre
Virtual Community Assembly

ESO ARC, ARC nodes in UK, Netherlands, Sweden,Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, IRAM

Gergö Popping – ARC network coordinator, moderator
Martin Zwaan – ARC manager
Evanthia Hatziminaoglou – Deputy ARC manager
Carmen Toribio – Nordic ARC node representativeBACK TO SCIENCE OBSERVATIONS

2

Short recap of the last 12 months
Science Operations suspended on March 19, 2020
Cycle 8 postponed by one yearØ Operationally not possible to start Cycle 8Ø Cycle 7 runs until 30 September 2021

Put health and safety of ALMA staff and community firstARCs and ALMA Santiago fully operational
Much progress has been made, so that we canØ Resume Cycle 7 observing
Ø Open the new Cycle 8 2021 Call for Proposals

3Return to Operations
Detailed plans and risk management protocols have beendevelopedØ ALMA observatory is a very remote site!

Returning to operations carefully planned, at every step
performance must be validated, safety assessed etc.
All initial steps have been successfully completed
Ø Reoccupation of Operations Support Facility, electricity, water, foodØ Monitor systems, maintenance, labs
Ø Power high site, correlator, stability of the overall system
Ø Power up antennas, cool down, distributed power network
Ø Also: use of control room extension in Santiago

Currently in Basic Science Operations Phase4

Return to operations - science
Antennas inspected, performance verified, and integrated
into the array
Several end-to-end tests are being run
Ø A selection of test observations are run from acquisition to quality assuranceØ The 12-m Array passed these end-to-end tests

Decision made to resume science observing this month withØ At least 32 antennas in 12-m ArrayØ At least 8 antennas in 7-m Array

In addition to resuming science observing, other priorities are:
Ø Preparing for Cycle 8 2021, software testingØ New observing modes and capabilities for Cycle 9+5

Back to Cycle 7 – early phase
Projects in the Cycle 7 observing queue will be executed if
suitable in terms ofØ Phase stability
Ø Achievable angular resolution with the available number of antennas

Execution time will be increased to account for lower
sensitivity of reduced number of antennas
Observations will run through data reduction pipeline andquality assurance ‘as normal’In case of doubts about QA, PIs may be contacted
Aim is to return to observing with the nominal number ofantennas (at least 43 12-m, 10 7-m) as soon asreasonably possible
7

Back to Cycle 7
What configuration are we starting in?
Ø Currently in C43-4/C43-5
Ø No antenna relocations yet
Ø The configuration schedule for Cycle 7 is not completely certain yet

See Science Portal for planned Cycle 7 scheduleØ Moving out, planning to reach C43-9/C43-10 in European summerØ It is feasible that the configuration schedule will be adapted

8Your Cycle 7 projects
All non-completed Cycle 7 projects (A,B,C) will remain in thequeue until end of September 2021
Ø For as long as there is a chance that they can be observed(configuration-wise); otherwise, they will be timed out

Will there be carry over to Cycle 8 2021?
Ø Grade A projects are carried over as normal

What happens to the proprietary times?
Ø Proprietary times of ALMA data sets that were not public on March 19
2020 were extended by three monthsØ Further extensions on case-by-case basis
9Your Cycle 7 projects
Will there be a VLBI session in 2021?
Ø VLBI sessions planned for April (EHT first half, GMVA second half)

What happens to DDTs and ToOs?
Ø DDTs will stay in the queueØ ToO PIs will be contacted

What happens to uncompleted projects at end of Cycle?
Ø As always, the aim is to complete projects and SBs
Ø Uncompleted SBs are delivered as QA2 semi-passØ Not foreseen to have special treatment of grade B/C projects
10Your Cycle 7 projects
What will happen to Grade A long-baseline projects that are
not completed in Cycle 7?
Ø Long baselines are not offered in Cycle 8 2021
Ø Projects will not be carried over to Cycle 9, need to be resubmitted

What happens if array recovery slows down
Ø This will have to be assessed. Community will be updated in time!
Ø Long-term goal is to keep Cycles that run from October to OctoberØ Doing long baselines this year is top priority!

Need to submit change requests if configuration schedulechanges?
Ø Community will be updated in time!

11Your Cycle 7 projects
Slide on SnooPI

SnooPI - The Snooping Project Interface
A software tool thatallows PIs, Co-Is andDelegees to track theobservational andprocessing status of
their ALMA science
projects

George Banks

Mary Poppins

01234

01234
A Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
proposal to observe the entire Universe

Please, send inputs
and feedbacks at
amiotell@eso.org
or through theALMA Helpdesk

Use SnooPI to follow the progressof your ALMA Projects!
You can find SnooPI on the ALMA Science Portal under “Observing”

12Cycle 7 DDT channel open
ALMA is once again accepting proposals for Director’s
Discretionary Time (DDT).
Procedures to submit a DDT proposal are described on theScience Portal (almascience.eso.org)
DDT projects may be executed with fewer than the nominal
number of Cycle 7 antennas.
If the observations can only be performed with the nominal
antenna numbers, this should be explicitly stated.

13

ALMA updates
Check the ALMA Science Portal:
almascience.eso.org
Read our ARC Newsletter:
https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/alma/news/arc-newsletter.html

And the regional ALMA Newsletters
Follow us on Twitter:@EsoARC or @ALMA_Europe and various ARC node handles

14

Cycle 8 – What’s newØ Capabilities as originally advertised + 1
Ø 4300h on the 12-m, 3000h on the 7-m, 3000h on the TP ArrayØ Maximum baseline of 8.5 km (3.6 km for Bands 8, 9 and 10)
Ø Distributed Peer Review
Ø Double anonymousØ No Phase 2 deadline (applies to both Main and Supplemental Calls)
Ø No cap on Large Programmes (but up to 50% per LST range)Cycle 8 – Key dates
Ø 17 March 2021: Cycle 8 2021 Call for Proposal and release of OT
Ø 21 April 2021: Proposal submission deadline
Ø 6 May 2021: Start of Stage 1 review
Ø 8 June 2021: Start of Stage 2 review
Ø 15 June 2021: Stage 2 review deadline
Ø August 2021: Results of proposal review sent to proposers
Ø 8 September 2021: ACA Supplemental Call for Proposals
Ø 1 October 2021: Start of Cycle 8 2021 observations
Ø 6 October 2021: Supplemental Call deadline

Cycle 8 - Capabilities
Same capabilities as originally advertised (+1)Ø Solar observations in Band 5
Ø VLBI observations of faint science targets (<500 mJy) in passive
phasing mode
Ø Mosaicking of continuum linear polarization observations (Bands 3 to 7)
Ø High-frequency (Bands 9 and 10) stand-alone observations with the7-m ArrayØ Spectral Scans with the 7-m ArrayØ Up to a total of 75h of single-pointing on-axis linear polarization on
the 7-m Array (Bands 3 to 7) in the main call only. Combined 12-m
Array and 7-m Array observations not supported.

Cycle 8 – Proposal review
Distributed peer review
Ø Already used in Cycle 7 Supplemental Call
Ø Larger community involvement in the ALMA review processØ For each submitted proposal, the PI (or a designated Co-I) will review 10proposals
Ø Proposals requesting <25h on the 12-m Array and ACA stand-alone
proposals of <150h
Ø Large Programs (LPs) and normal proposals with >25h on the 12-m Array
will be reviewed by panels
Ø ALMA encourages the submission of more ambitious proposals:• No cap on the total time that can be allocated to LPs• LPs and >25h proposals (on the 12-m Array) will have priority for building
the first 10% of the queueØ Important notice: please update your expertise area in the SciencePortal!

Cycle 8 – Proposal review

Cycle 8 – Proposal review

Cycle 8 – Proposal review
Dual anonymous review:
Ø For distributed and panel reviews alikeØ Aims at minimizing the systematics and unconscious biases
Ø Reviewers will not see the names of the Investigators
Ø Reviewers’ names will be unknown to proposers
Ø Guidelines on the Science Portal, Proposing  ALMA Proposal
Review  Dual anonymous GuidelinesØ Details and FAQ resources available on the ALMA Science Portal

Cycle 8 – No Phase 2 for PIs
PIs will not submit their Phase 2 Science Goals
Ø Triple-check Science Goals in Phase 1!
Ø Usual Contact Scientist (CS) assignments
Ø Scheduling Blocks (SBs) will be generated automaticallyØ PIs responsible for accuracy of info in their SBs prior to the firstexecution
Ø Minor changes can be requested directly on the project ticket(Helpdesk)• Shift position by up to 0.5 x the primary beam
• Change central frequency on sky up to 0.2 x width of spectral windowØ For major changes PIs will need to open a dedicated Helpdesk ticketØ In case of doubt, ask your CSØ Follow your project via SnooPI

All ARC nodes are open for(remote) user support• assistance with your ALMA data
• help with exploiting the ALMA Science Archive• data processing (calibration, imaging, postprocessing & analysis)• consultation via:
• e-mail• videoconference• remote access to computing• contact your ARC node for details

www.eso.org/sci/facilities/alma/arc.html

Cycle 8 2021 Proposal
Preparation Workshops

UK ARC Node

ALMA Virtual Workshop: March 22 – 26
http://alma.ac.uk

Italian ARC Node

Proposal Preparation Community Meeting: March 22 (11:00 CET)
https://www.alma.inaf.it

Nordic ARC Node

Proposal Preparation Events: March 22 (10:30 CET) & March 24 (15:00 CET)
nordic-alma.se

Allegro Node

Proposal Preparation Day: March 29
alma-allegro.nl

German ARC Node

Proposal Preparation Community Meeting: April 7 (11:00 CEST)
astro.uni-bonn.de/ARC•••

Complemented with videos and materials online
All nodes are open for virtual individual 1-to-1 proposal preparation support
Contact your node for details

Questions?
Please use Q&A in Teams