Italian Science Case for ALMA Band 2+3

The Premiale Project "Science and Technology in Italy for the upgraded ALMA Observatory - iALMA" has the goal of strengthening the scientific, technological and industrial Italian contribution to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the largest ground based international infrastructure for the study of the Universe in the microwave. One of the main objectives of the Science Working Group (SWG) inside iALMA, the Work Package 1, is to develop the Italian contribution to the Science Case for the ALMA Band 2 or Band 2+3 receiver. ALMA Band 2 receiver spans from ~67 GHz (bounded by an opaque line complex of ozone lines) up to 90 GHz which overlaps with the lower frequency end of ALMA Band 3. Receiver technology has advanced since the original definition of the ALMA frequency bands. It is now feasible to produce a single receiver which could cover the whole frequency range from 67 GHz to 116 GHz, encompassing Band 2 and Band 3 in a single receiver cartridge, a so called Band 2+3 system. In addition, upgrades of the ALMA system are now foreseen that should double the bandwidth to 16 GHz. The science drivers discussed below therefore also discuss the advantages of these two enhancements over the originally foreseen Band 2 system.Comment: 43 pages, 21 figure

The ISM at high redshifts: ALMA results and a look to the future

ALMA is revolutionizing the way we study and understand the astrophysics of galaxies, both as a whole and individually. By exploiting its unique sensitivity and resolution to make spatially and spectrally resolved images of the gas and dust in the interstellar medium (ISM), ALMA can reveal new information about the relationship between stars and gas, during and between galaxies' cycles of star formation and AGN fueling. However, this can only be done for a modest number of targets, and thus works in the context of large samples drawn from other surveys, while providing parallel deep imaging in small fields around. Recent ALMA highlights are reviewed, and some areas where ALMA will potentially make great contributions in future are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, Review contribution to the Third Year ALMA conference, Tokyo, December 201

Origins of the ALMA Project in the scientific visions of the North American, European, and Japanese astronomical communities

ALMA is a worldwide project, the synthesis of early visions of astronomers in its three partner communities, Europe, North America, and Japan. The evolution of these concepts and their eventual merger into ALMA are discussed, setting the background for the papers which follow on the scientific requirements and expected performance of ALMA for extra-galactic, galactic, and solar system research.Comment: 4 pages, including 1 figure; to appear in ESA SP-577, Proceedings of the conference "Dusty and Molecular Universe - A prelude to HERSCHEL AND ALMA", October 25-27, 2004, Pari

European ALMA operations: the interaction with and support to the users

The Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) is one of the largest and most complicated observatories ever built. Constructing and operating an observatory at high altitude (5000m) in a cost effective and safe manner, with minimal effect on the environment creates interesting challenges. Since the array will have to adapt quickly to prevailing weather conditions, ALMA will be operated exclusively in service mode. By the time of full science operations, the fundamental ALMA data product shall be calibrated, deconvolved data cubes and images, but raw data and data reduction software will be made available to users as well. User support is provided by the ALMA Regional Centres (ARCs) located in Europe, North America and Japan. These ARCs constitute the interface between the user community and the ALMA observatory in Chile. For European users the European ARC is being set up as a cluster of nodes located throughout Europe, with the main centre at the ESO Headquarters in Garching. The main centre serves as the access portal and in synergy with the distributed network of ARC nodes, the main aim of the ARC is to optimize the ALMA science output and to fully exploit this unique and powerful facility. The aim of this article is to introduce the process of proposing for observing time, subsequent execution of the observations, obtaining and processing of the data in the ALMA epoch. The complete end-to-end process of the ALMA data flow from the proposal submission to the data delivery is described.Comment: 7 pages, three figure

Detecting the Most Distant (z>7) Objects with ALMA

Detecting and studying objects at the highest redshifts, out to the end of Cosmic Reionization at z>7, is clearly a key science goal of ALMA. ALMA will in principle be able to detect objects in this redshift range both from high-J (J>7) CO transitions and emission from ionized carbon, [CII], which is one of the main cooling lines of the ISM. ALMA will even be able to resolve this emission for individual targets, which will be one of the few ways to determine dynamical masses for systems in the Epoch of Reionization. We discuss some of the current problems regarding the detection and characterization of objects at high redshifts and how ALMA will eliminate most (but not all) of them.Comment: to appear in Astrophysics and Space Science, "Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics", ed. R. Bachille