1. Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array - ALMA ASAC Charges For Oct 31 ASAC Report to ALMA Board Al Wootten JAO Interim Project Scientist

2. Charges from ALMA Board recvd 2007 July 26  1. Assess the preparation of the ALMA real time, observing, and off-line software for early science. In particular, review the impact of the recommendations of the recent software review and the schedule for the next two years.  Given  2007 May ExternalCDR5 Review,  2007 Sep CIPT governance of ALMA Test Facility,  2007 Oct CASA Limited Release,  Therefore a report on this charge is expected for the Board’s 2008 April 1-2 meeting.  No further discussion here.

3. Charges from ALMA Board recvd 2007 July 26  2. Revisit the question from April, 2007 of important correlator requirements for early science operations. In particular prioritizing the order of development of software modes. Compare broad early science requirements to correlator modes. Which modes enable the majority of the science? What other capabilities are important?  Plan: 2-antenna correlator now at ATF will be duplicated and deployed to OSF. Since ALMA correlators will only be available at AOS with antenna signals after CSV begins, the first modes commissioned on the ALMA correlators will reflect those available on the 2-antenna correlator.  Interpretation of Charge: Will these modes enable the majority of science which should be done during the Early Science phase?  Reference: DRSP 2.0 (though this is for Full Science).

4. Charges from ALMA Board recvd 2007 July 26  3. Review the calibration plan and scientific aspects of Assembly, Integration, Verification testing and for Commissioning. Being mindful of the finite resources (human, financial) available, are changes necessary or desirable for scientific reasons to the plans being implemented?  Calibration Plan reviewed by ASAC 2006 September.  Implementation awaits software availability at ATF, OSF, AOS.

5. Charge 3, continued  AIV testing begins at OSF with antenna handover from contractor. Under lead of PE (R. Murowinski) with assistance from Science IPT. AIV Test Scientists currently being hired.  Joe McMullin, Lead  Dick Srameck  Masato Ishiguro  Two others, to be named.  Commissioning and Science Verification Plan reviewed by ASAC September 2006.  Further developed at f2f meeting 2006 Oct at ESO.  PS Hills, DPS Peck currently asessing plan.  Two Commissioning Scientist positions currently advertised to join the Santiago team.

6. Charges from ALMA Board recvd 2007 July 26  Premonitions of future charges: Looking to the future, the Board anticipates that ASAC will be asked when appropriate to consider, e.g., a) the progress of the ARCs and their plans for early science support. Is the planned level of readiness and support appropriate for non-expert users?; b) the Operations Plan as accepted by the Board following input of the external reviews and of the JAO; and c) when further work by the Science IPT is available, the imaging capability of ALMA in its three modes: 12-m array, ACA and full ALMA. SIPT will need to provide images with a full range of spatial scales to explore the scientific basis for choosing which of the three modes to use for a given project.

7. Plan to address charges  Timescale prohibits arranging an ASAC f2f meeting in time to discuss charges.  Therefore: Regional f2f meetings-- ANASAC now, ESAC week of 29 Sept, EASAC afterwards. ASAC to cobble report together during October, submit midmonth for Board meeting 30-31 October.  Distribution of materials, discussions today may be further amplified in upcoming weeks.

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