PATT ITAC Report for Semester 00AB

This document details the allocations for telescope time made by the ITAC for the semester 00A (1 February 2000 - 31 July 2000).

The individual partner TAGs hold meetings in their respective countries prior to the PATT session to assess applications deemed by the JCMT Board rule to be from their own country. At these meetings informal numbers of shifts are nominated for each application in a priority order. The Chairpersons of each TAG bring their respective lists to the PATT where the ITAC combine the awards, include discussion of the engineering and commissioning requirements, and assess the International applications. The final allocations of shifts are made by the ITAC.

# 10 UK starred applications & 1 Canadian carry-overs have been included in this total.

The PATT meeting was held at PPARC, Swindon on 6 & 7 December 1999.

It should be noted that if the PI on an application is a JCMT staff member based in Hilo, then the application is assessed by the national TAG where appropriate. However, by Board rule, International status is given to any application where the only named collaborator from any partner country is a JCMT staff member. International applications are assessed by the ITAC members at their meeting.

The above table indicates the order in which nights are removed from the total available for the semester. The table below indicates the allocations using the JCMT Board formula for attributing applications to countries.

Allocations for this semester are:

CDN = 4.0 shifts allocated for Canserv;

NL = no free allocation remaining;

UK = up to 27 shifts in the Ukflex fallback program;

INT = 0,25 shifts allocated for Intflex.

SPIFI (South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer), the visiting instrument from the Cornell group, is scheduled for installation in mid-May with several astronomical runs flexibly arranged over the following two weeks. SPIFI will be located on the right-hand Nasmyth (opposite SCUBA).

The Max Planck Institut fur Radioastronomie (Bonn) intend to bring their 800 GHz heterodyne instrument out for observations during the semester. It is likely that this will be scheduled around mid-April.

M/99A/C19(B.Matthews) was extended for a further allocation of 2 shifts in 00A to continue polarisation studies of molecular cloud cores and young stellar objects. This application has Canadian student thesis project status and continues to be re-allocated until observations are completed.

M/99A/U01(Holland) was given a further 4 shifts to continue the dusty disk observations. In addition, 2.5 shifts were carried over, as starred, from their 99B allocation. M/99A/U42(Richer), mapping of the star formation in the Perseus molecular cloud, was given a further 6 shifts. In addition, 1 shift was carried over, as starred, from their 99B allocation. M/99A/U45(Rowan-Robinson), the UK 8mJy SCUBA/ISO survey, was given a further 8 shifts in 00A with a final 8 shifts for semester 00B conditional on source identifications. In addition, 8 shifts were carried over, as starred, from their 99B allocation. M/99B/U43(Thommes) was given a further 4 shifts in semester 00A to complete observations to investigate the role of dust in extremely red galaxies. M/99B/U68(Holland) was given a further 4 shifts in semester 00A to study the Vega phenomenon around nearby stars. In addition, 2 shift were carried over, as starred, from their 99B allocation. All of the above extensions are subject to satisfactory progress reports to the relevant TAGs from earlier observations.

A two-week period of heavy engineering (no observing possible) has been scheduled for March to replace the carousel drive motors and their associated electrical systems, drive cubicles, and electronic systems. A contingency period of one week has been set aside for extended work. If not required for carousel repair, this contingency time will be used for other urgent engineering or commissioning work, or returned for PATT use as appropriate.

Two shifts were kept for further TCS/OCS testing and the remaining 12 shifts were included in the allocation tables for semester 99B.

Some shifts have been set aside for further commissioning of the heterodyne instruments.

RxA3 was scheduled for a new tuner-less mixer which may be available for installation this semester. However, a faulty liquid helium transfer in December has resulted in a vacuum leak in the cryostat and, as a result, RxA3 is unavailable for an undefined period of time until repairs can be effected.

RxB3 was also scheduled for a mixer upgrade to the tuner-less variety which has now been completed (in January).

Poor weather continues to plague the commissioning of the high-frequency instrument RxW and further shifts are required for that purpose.

Both the SPIFI and the MPI (800 GHz) instruments require setup shifts to enable installation, alignment, and system checks to be performed. SPIFI is located on the Nasmyth platform opposite from SCUBA. The MPI instrument goes into a receiver bay in the Cassegrain cabin.

The MPI group was again offered 4 engineering shifts plus 2 DDT shifts to install and commission their single mixer 800 GHz system (E-band) and have accepted the offer. They have been scheduled a flexible block of observing time in mid-April.

In addition there is commissioning time scheduled for SCUBA.

The two shifts from the previous semester, critical for complete 450 micron commissioning of the SCUBA polarimeter, were lost due to poor weather, but time has been scheduled to complete this work in semester 00A.

A number of applications have been approved by the ITAC to be included in the schedule should the weather not be appropriate for the primary observations on any night. All applicants (allocated and fallback) have been requested to submit a completed template by the end of the first month of the semester, February 29, so their observations can be included on the queue system. Failure to submit a working template by February 29 may result in the ITAC removing the allocation of time. Applicants will be reminded in mid-February. Templates can be updated at any time, but it is necessary to have a working draft in the system.

There remains an outstanding 22.5 shifts of starred applications from semester 99B carried over into this semester. In addition, M/99B/U17(Crutcher) was given a 2 shift allocation deferred to 00A due to lack of RxA3 in semester 99B. The UK TAG again set aside a total of 24 shifts designated as UKflex. The intention is that each high-frequency allocation be extended by typically 20% using UKflex time, thus increasing the chance of obtaining suitable weather to complete the high-frequency program. Under weather conditions unsuitable for the high-frequency observing, the current observers would undertake observations from the UKflex list in a serviced mode and in the scientific priority ordering given by the UK TAG. Successful applicants on the UKflex fallback list have been informed that they have to submit complete templates for their observations but that there is no guarantee that any part of their program will be done during the semester.

A flexible system is now in operation for all partner communities, and for UH. Wherever possible the International projects are included flexibly with other partner projects. This appears to work extremely effectively with all allocated projects being placed in scientifically prioritised queues and flexed against all other projects in those queues.

Each allocation has been placed into a select weather band, defined by a range of values of the CSO tau meter (water vapour content). It is imperative that observers make their observations within their prescribed weather bands and turn to other queued projects once the weather changes. Note that it is possible for the weather to improve out of a prescribed weather band as well as deteriorate.

From the start of semester 99B, due to staff pressures at the JAC, support staff no longer conduct serviced observing except for some very short (usually single shift) projects. The fallback queues will therefore continue to be handled by the TSS group and by visiting observers. It is now even more imperative that applicants make travel arrangements to provide observing cover for their scheduled shifts.

11.1 Guaranteed time for instrument builders: The ITAC approved of the JCMT Board strategy on this topic, in that (a) time should be linked to the complexity of the project with different awards depending on whether the instrument was defined as small, medium, or large. A backend would count as an instrument. Other instruments, such as RxH3, would be treated on a case by case basis; (b) the science programme would be open to any of the investigators involved with the instrument. A scientific case would be adjudicated by the ITAC and must come from a subset of the original science case for the instrument (where appropriate).

11.2 Large programmes: Significant allocations of time resulting from the section above would be split over not less than two consecutive semesters so as not to monopolise most, or all, of the high-frequency weather during any given semester.

11.3 Release of data from the archive: With effect from the beginning of semester 00A, ALL JCMT data will become publically available one year after the final observations are taken. Any request for an exception to this rule must be given as a written case by the Principal Investigator and submitted to the Director, JCMT. Applicants will be reminded approximately one month prior to the end of the semester that their data will be released.

11.4 Rules for service observing?

The were only minor improvements to the current scheme which did not affect applicants, but smoothed the collection system at the JAC. All applications were received electronically using the software systems at either Groningen, Victoria, or the JAC. All postscript applications were collated and a top copy printed at the JAC within 3-4 days of the PATT deadline. No major problems were observed. Minor problems persist with the formatting and printing of the various types of postscript files, but these can always be worked around.

The UH applications do not conform to the electronic system and continue to be collected at the UH and posted to the JAC as hardcopy.

The deadline for semester 00B (1 August 2000 through 31 January 2001) applications is 31 March 2000 for ALL applicants. This deadline encompasses applications for all available facility instrumentation on the JCMT (RxA3, RxB3, the heterodyne polarimeter, RxW, SCUBA, and the SCUBA imaging polarimeter) and the visiting instruments SPIFI and the MPI (800 GHz) receiver.

It should be noted that there have been significant changes to the membership of ITAC for this round. The two UK representatives, Dr. Jim Dunlop and Dr. John Richer, have been rotated off the committee and replaced by Dr. Jonathan Rawlings (Chairman) and Dr. Rob Ivison. The Canadian representative, Dr. Mike Fich, has been succeeded by Dr. Henry Matthews. Dr. Thijs van der Hulst remains as the Netherlands representative. A belated thanks to the retiring members for their sterlings efforts over recent semesters.