Monday, 16th June at 2.00pm at the JAC
Alison Peck
Joint ALMA Office, Santiago
"ALMA: Overview and Current Status"
ABSTRACT: The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA)
is an international millimeter/submillimeter interferometer under
construction in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. ALMA will be
situated on a high-altitude site at 5000m elevation which provides
excellent atmospheric transmission over most of the wavelength range
of 0.3 to 3 mm. At the shortest planned wavelength and most extended
configuration, the angular resolution of ALMA will be 5
milliarcseconds. This will give us the ability to, for example, image
the gas kinematics in protostars and in protoplanetary disks around
young Sun-like stars at a distance of 150 pc, or to image the
redshifted dust continuum emission from evolving galaxies at epochs of
formation as early as z = 10.
At present, the first 8 antennas have been delivered and assembled
at the Operations Support Facility (OSF) at 3000m near San Pedro de
Atacama. These antennas will be assessed by ALMA engineering and
science staff and then moved to the high site for commissioning. Array
commissioning will begin in 2009 with fringes and phase closure
amongst at least 3 fully functioning antennas at the high site, and
early science observations are expected in late 2010, with full
operations in 2012.
Relevant web sites:
ALMA website hosted by NRAO
ESO's ALMA website
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