ALMA Information for New and Experienced Users:

1. •Observing with ALMA - A Primer  A 36-page document (pdf – 6.1MB) produced by NRC-HIA and UCalgary, containing an introduction to ALMA, useful information about ALMA, and sample science cases including observing parameters needed to carry out the sample projects. A must-read for both those who are new or experienced at interferometry
   

2. •North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC)  Based in Charlottesville, VA, the NAASC is the North American (including Canada) access point to ALMA.  This site contains most of the information and links needed by astronomers to write/submit proposals, get help, and acquire/reduce/analyze data.
   

3. •Preparing for ALMA A workshop, “Preparing for ALMA”, was held at McMaster University in June 2009.  Speakers from NRAO, HIA, McMaster, and elsewhere, provided an introduction to interferometry, to ALMA, and ALMA software, and led hands-on sessions using the software.  Here are links to the talks.
   

4. •ALMA Workshops, conferences, etc. Previous, and upcoming ALMA workshops, symposia, etc.
   

5. •Timescales  Current status for start of early science, configurations, etc.
   

6. •International ALMA Website  This is primarily a site for the general public, including the latest news, pictures, videos, etc., but contains other useful information such as a list of the (multitude of) acronyms associated with this project, and info on the ALMA site in Chile.
   

The ALMA Partnership

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.

Canada’s Involvement with ALMA

1. •Canadian ALMA Project Scientist & Project Manager
   

2. •Canadian Contributions to ALMA  Under construction.
   

3. •Canadian ALMA Science Advisory Council (CASAC)  A committee of Canadian astronomers which advises the Canadian ALMA project scientist and provides indirect input to the ALMA Science Advisory Council (ASAC).
   

4. •NRC-HIA’s role  Under construction.
   

5. •A brief history of Canada’s involvement with ALMA  Under construction.
   

Science and Software Tools

1. •The ALMA Sensitivity Calculator is the tool for estimating integration time.
   

2. •The Observing Tool (OT) is the proposal (Phase I) and observation preparation (Phase II) tool.
   

3. •Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) is the offline data reduction and analysis tool. The training manuals for CASA are available at this link. CASA can be downloaded from the CASA tab at my.nrao.edu.
   

4. •Simdata is a simulator task built into the CASA data reductions package. CASA includes files of the ALMA array configurations so that investigators can simulate ALMA observations. To access this capability, download and install the current CASA Beta Release. Additional ALMA simulater software is availabler at this link.
   

5. •Splatalogue is a database containing frequencies of atomic and molecular transitions which emit in the radio through submillimeter wavelength range.

This site is generously hosted on behalf of the Canadian ALMA Science Advisory Council by the University of Calgary.

Please direct any questions, comments, etc., to the Canadian ALMA Project Manager, Gerald Schieven, at

gerald.schievenATnrc-cnrc.gc.ca

This page last updated 28 January 2010.