ALMA Regional Centre Activities
ARC support for European ALMA users will be provided via email, the Web and phone, following an operations model similar to that in place for ESO facilities on Paranal. User support will be provided by newly acquired operations astronomers and scientists trained and experienced in ALMA operations, science and associated tools, reinforced by regular operational postings to the Operations Support Facility (OSF). Data quality assurance and certified data products will be produced by the Joint ALMA Office (JAO) in Chile. ESO will distribute products from the archive copy maintained and operated in Garching. ESO will have staff who are expert in the standard processing pipelines of the observatory and can provide technical data analysis support for these products and the ALMA standard pipelines and packages.
During ALMA's operations stage the ESO ALMA Regional Centre will be responsible for the following activities:
- Phase 1 operations
- Phase 2 operations
- Data product support
- Archive operations
- Feedback on operational processes and tools
- Astronomer-on-duty shifts
Phase 1 Operations
At regular intervals, the Joint ALMA Office in Santiago will issue a call for proposals and will invite users to submit ALMA observing proposals. Proposals will have to be prepared using the ALMA Oberving Tool (AOT). ARC staff will provide support to astronomers preparing their proposals. The ARC staff also assist the JAO in coordinating the refereeing process and in assessing the technical feasibility of the proposals.
Phase 2 Operations
The PIs of proposals that successfully pass the technical and scientific evaluation are invited to use the AOT to specify the technical details that are required to schedule and execute the proposed observations. Each project will be broken down in one or more observing unit sets, which in turn consis of scheduling blocks (SB). The ARC staff will provide support during this phase and will validate all material prepared by the users.
Data product support
After the observations have been carried out, and the data have passed through a series of quality assurance checks, the data will be processed automatically by the science data pipeline. This pipeline should produce high quality, fully calibrated science products for most standard observing modes. ARC staff will provide technical user support, which is probably required most when more complicated observing techniques are used. In addition, ARC staff will contribute to improving the heuristics used in the ALMA science pipeline.
ALMA archive operations
The ARCs will hold complete synchronized copies of the ALMA archive. Specialized ARC staff will be responsible for maintaining archive hardware and software, maintaining the archive webpage, distributing archive data to users, and will provide basic archive user technical support. ARC staff will also develop tools for integrating ALMA data into the Virtual Observatory (VO).
Feedback on operational processes and tools
Based on the experience and expertise that will be built up during ALMA operations, ARC staff will be able (and responsible) for providing feedback to the observatory on ALMA operational processes and tools. This feedback relates both to the staff and the end-user perspective.
Astronomer-on-duty shifts
ARC staff astronomers will travel to Chajnantor on a regular basis to serve as astronomers-on-duty (AoD). This is essential in order to keep close ties between the ARCs and the observatory and to develop and maintain a good understanding of the ALMA operations.