1. Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Expanded Very Large Array Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope Very Long Baseline Array The ALMA Observing Preparation Tool NRAO / North American ALMA Science Center

2. 2 Video versions of this material: April 26, 2011

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4. Click here 4

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6. Registering with User Portal To register for the user portal, go to either: http://almascience.org/ http://almascience.nrao.edu/ (saves one step) http://almascience.nrao.edu/ Go to the User Portal to access: ALMA info and news Call for Proposals ALMA tools and documentation Helpdesk Project Tracker ALMA Science Archive 6

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8. Launch the Application April 26, 2011 A couple of dialog boxes will pop up 8

9. April 26, 2011 Hover over these icons to get help New Proposal (Phase I) Open project from Archive … New Phase I Science Goal… Sensitivity Calculator … Help! Contextual help on proposal workflow 9

10. April 26, 201110 Be alert to the presence of sliders, some information may be off-screen Tips

11. April 26, 201111 Stippled edges can be dragged to resize panes Tips

12. April 26, 201112 Arrowheads maximize and minimize panes Tips

13. A walk through of a simple example Observe molecular gas in NGC 1097 Use CO (1-0) emission line – Rest frequency: 115.2712 GHz – Band 3 (2.6 mm) Size of NGC 1097 is 9’ x 6’ The field of view for a single pointing at 115 GHz is ~ 45” Single pointing of the nucleus  During ES, up to 50 pointing mosaics are allowed. April 26, 2011 NGC 1097 from S 4 G, Sheth et al. 2010 Synthesized beam w/400m baseline 13

14. April 26, 2011 Proposal Preparation Workflow – Using the Contextual help Click through the tabs and follow the instructions on the left. 14

15. Fill out these relevant fields 15April 26, 2011

16. Proposal Title Abstract Fill out these relevant fields 16

17. April 26, 2011 { Fill out these relevant fields Click here to set PI and co-Is 17

18. April 26, 2011 Type in the name or username An error may pop up 18

19. April 26, 2011 If you get stuck on any step, look for the “?” Icon Click on it to get help. Finding Help 19

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21. April 26, 2011 …as a single PDF file Attaching the Sci / Tech Justification… 21

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23. April 26, 2011 At any point you can check whether your proposal passes validation Validation is required before proposal can be submitted 23

24. April 26, 201124 Click on this turn-key to continue

25. April 26, 2011 Press on Science Goal tab to create a science goal 25

26. April 26, 2011 What is a Science Goal in the OT? A science goal is: – One correlator / front end setup in one ALMA band spectral windows, rest freq, polarization products, line/continuum modes – Subject to one set of control parameters spatial resolution, sensitivity, dynamic range – Using one mapping strategy Mosaic or single-pointing – And one calibration strategy User or system-defined – Applied to an arbitrary set of sky targets (field centers) Each with its own LSR velocity In ES all windows in one science goal must have the same bandwidth and channel spacing 26

27. April 26, 2011 Describe your science goal if you wish – for the technical assessors (not required) Enter in Source name 27

28. April 26, 2011 Make sure and double check the coordinates. 28

29. April 26, 2011 Check the velocity used -> observing frequency. 29

30. April 26, 2011 Red text indicates incorrect or missing value Click on Spatial Tab to visualize observations 30

31. April 26, 2011 Clicking here opens the visualizer panel Press Query to get the image from pre-loaded servers 31 - or - Load your own image* (Galactic coordinates won’t work yet)

32. Enter frequency Placing beams on an image (the graphical method) 32April 26, 2011

33. For Calibration Set up: Unless you have a strong reason for choosing User-defined calibration, then leave this as System- defined calibration. 33

34. April 26, 2011 Currently supported modes for Cycle 0 Press here to add a line 34

35. A window that can search Splatalogue will open. e.g. Type in “CO” 35April 26, 2011

36. Double click on the transition Transition moves into this window Press here to accept selection 36 Now, the line list will be limited to those that can be observed at same time! April 26, 2011

37. 37 Your chosen Line is now loaded into the Setup:

38. April 26, 2011 Click on Spectral Tab to visualize observations Atmospheric transmission 38

39. Band 3 LO Range Sidebands LO CO line Press here to change resolution 39April 26, 2011

40. Trade-off between bandwidth & resolution Select correlator mode 40

41. Can add up to 4 spectral windows – must have same resolution and bandwidth in Cycle 0 Location of windows is constrained 41April 26, 2011

42. Summary: A very versatile tool with lots of options Note that the colors can be changed from the Preferences: 42

43. April 26, 2011 Request the resolution and sensitivity you need for your Science Goal 43

44. April 26, 2011 Back to our example of NGC 1097 To get a 10 σ detection on the faintest emission in the map requires ~10 mJy/beam in a 10 km/s channel. The ALMA correlator gives 1.275 km/s channels; we will bin 8 channels to get to 10 km/s. So required sensitivity in one correlator channel ~ 10 mJy/bm * sqrt (8) ~ 28 mJy/beam Nobeyama maps of NGC 1097 (Kohno et al. 2003) 44

45. April 26, 2011 Back to our example of NGC 1097 1.4”~ 110pc Sufficient to resolve the ring Press here to get an idea of how long it will take to do this 45

46. April 26, 2011 ALMA with 16 x 12m antennas is very fast! BUT be aware that your UV-coverage may not be ideal – we recommend that you use simdata to check 46

47. April 26, 2011 Back to our example of NGC 1097 47

48. April 26, 2011 Time allocation for the proposal will be the Total Estimated time. 48

49. April 26, 201149 Validation Step

50. April 26, 201150 List of problems…

51. April 26, 2011 See also: “known issues” http://almasw.hq.eso.org/almasw/bin/view/OBSPREP/Cycle0KnownIssues 51

52. NAASC Tutorials & Community Events April 26, 2011 Jan 18, Victoria, BC Feb 10-11, Honolulu, HI Feb 24-25, Charlottesville, VA Mar 7, Philadelphia, PA Mar 11, Santa Fe, NM (New Horizons conference) Mar 15-16, Pasadena, CA Apr 18, Baltimore, MD Apr 20, Boston, MA Apr 26-27, Charlottesville, VA May 2-3, Gainesville, FL May 9-10, Iowa City, IOA May 9-10, Charlottesville, VA May 22-26, Boston, MA (AAS) May 27, NYC, NY 52 Completed Remaining

53. The Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter 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. almascience.nrao.edu science.nrao.edu/alma April 26, 201153