ALMA TACand the proposal process

ALMA TAC and the proposal process

Lister Staveley-SmithMember, ALMA Review Panel

ALMA Board Documents which describe the TAC process• NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

• Principles of ALMA Proposal Review Process

– K.Y. Lo, T. de Graauw, S. Miyama, M. Rubio, T. de Zeeuw (2011)

• Proposal Review Process – Cycle 0

– L. Nyman (2011)

ALMA shares

• Europe: 33.75%

• North America: 33.75%

• East Asia: 22.50%

• Chile: 10.00%

TOTAL: 100.0%

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‘Rest of the world’ shared between these regions

Open Skies principles

• Open Skies proposals: PI or co-PI not from the four regions.

• Treated in identical manner to other proposals until rankings

reach JAO Director, when they will be ‘adjusted’.

• ‘Up’ to 5% of total ALMA time available (charged to four regions

in ratio 33.75%:33.75%:22.5%:10%).

• Time in excess of 5% ‘charged’ to North America (following US

government policy).

• PI chooses most convenient ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) for

support.

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Cycle 0 Capabilities

The ALMA Cycle 0 capabilities are:• Sixteen 12-m antennas • Receiver bands 3, 6, 7 & 9 (wavelengths of about 3,

1.3, 0.8 and 0.45 mm) • Two array configurations with baselines out to

125m and 400 m [1”-6”; 0.25”-1.5”]• Single field imaging• Pointed mosaics with a maximum of 50 pointings• Restricted set of spectral modes chosen to meet a

reasonable range of scientific goals

April 5, 2011Australian ALMA Community

Workshop, CSIRO5

Timelines for Cycle 0• 30 March 2011: Call for Proposals for the ALMA Early

Science Cycle 0 was released, including access to the offline Observing Tool

• 1 June 2011: Opening of archive for proposal submission

• 30 June 2011: Proposal Deadline• 30 September 2011: Start of ALMA Cycle 0 observing• February 2012: One month engineering shutdown • April-May 2012: Deadline for Cycle 1 proposal

submission• 30 June 2012: End of ALMA Cycle 0

April 5, 2011Australian ALMA Community

Workshop, CSIRO6

Principles of assigning ALMA observing time

GENERAL

• Scientific merit

• Technical feasibility

• Regional balance

• Proprietary time 12 months

• Single ALMA TAC (Chile TBD)

CYCLE 0

• Need for prompt data reduction, including possible ARC visit

• Experience in radio/millimetre data reduction

• Best-efforts basis; no guarantees

• No claim-staking; no carry-over

• Short, simple high-impact proposals (a few hours integration time)

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ALMA Review Panels: science areas

1. Cosmology and the high redshift Universe

2. Galaxies and galactic nuclei

3. ISM, star formation/protoplanetary disks and their astrochemistry,

exoplanets

4. Stellar evolution, the Sun and Solar System

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Proposal grading system

• Grade A (upper <20%):

– highest priority; remain in queue until complete (except cycle 0)

• Grade B:

– high priority; remain in queue for current cycle only

• Grade C:

– filler projects

• Grade D:

– will not be observed

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Proposal Review Process (draft)

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Neal Evans

Proposal Review Process (cycle 0)

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Cycle 0 Proposals

• Only Standard proposals will be accepted (<100h of observing time, as given by the OT time estimator).

• ToOs will be possible, but can only be executed (triggered) during the Cycle 0 blocks of observing time.– Triggering will be done through a webform.– Instructions are given in the Proposers Guide what

information needs to be included in ToO proposals.• Time critical observations may be possible, but will be

restricted to the Cycle 0 blocks of observing time. Therefore execution time must be specified with a “fuzziness” of not less than 3 weeks.

April 5, 2011Australian ALMA Community

Workshop, CSIRO12

Cycle 0 proposals

• Any astronomer may submit a proposal• Proposals should exploit the advertised ALMA

Early Science Cycle 0 capabilities, producing scientifically worthwhile results from relatively short observations (averaging a few hours)

• Proposals will be assessed by peer review, and ranked strictly on the basis of scientific quality and feasibility with respect to the offered capabilities

April 5, 2011Australian ALMA Community

Workshop, CSIRO13

PI Experience and Feedback• PIs and observing teams should anticipate the need to

invest their own time and expertise in the analysis of ALMA Early Science data products – includes the possible need to visit the relevant ARC to

assist with quality assurance and data reduction (ALMA is interested in determining the science value of the data as soon as possible)

• Proposers should anticipate that significant experience in radio (in particular, millimeter) interferometry will be an advantage in working with the data products during ALMA Early Science.

• PIs will need to interact with their ARC in the creation of scheduling blocks

April 5, 2011Australian ALMA Community

Workshop, CSIRO14

Concluding remarks

• Only 500-700 hrs likely to be available for Cycle 0 proposals (priority

is construction, commissioning and science verification).

• Limited Cycle 0 sensitivity (quarter of full ALMA, but still ~6× better

than ATCA at 100 GHz) and capability.

• Severe Cycle 0 over-subscription (10:1) expected.

• If you have a simple, short, high-impact observation, give it a go!

• Experience in mm/radio reductions give ATCA/Mopra users an

advantage.

• If you have a complicated (multi-field, multi-source, multi-frequency)

proposal requiring a lot of time, might be better to wait for Cycle 1 or

later (NB no proprietary science allowed in Cycle 0).

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April 5, 2011Australian ALMA Community

Workshop, CSIRO16

www.almaobservatory.org

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.