Scientific Organizing Committee

1. Place and Date

The Conference will be held at the University Conference Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. It will run for one and one-half days, Friday and Saturday, May 14-15, 2004.

DEADLINE DATES to REMEMBER

15 April     Deadline for $150 pre-registration
15 April     Deadline for submission of abstracts.
14 May       Meeting begins (8 am).
                   Meeting Banquet and Cash Bar Discussion.
15 May       Meeting ends, lunch begins (12:30 pm)

2. MEETING FORMAT

In October 1999, a meeting was held in Washington, D.C. to bring together scientists working on the development of what would become ALMA to review
the scientific program planned for the array and how that program interacted with the science goals of other astronomical facilities contemporaneous with it. The results of that meeting were published in Science with ALMA, ASP Conference Series Volume 235. Much of the research planned for ALMA at that meeting, augmented by material in the ESO Science Case for ALMA (http://www.eso.org/projects/alma/science/alma-science.pdf) has appeared in the ALMA Design Reference Science Plan (DRSP), a collection of experiments planned for the fully operational ALMA which was recently presented by the ALMA Project and which may be inspected at http://www.alma.nrao.edu/science/

The ALMA prototype antenna has made its first images; groundbreaking has occurred in Chile; NRAO's Charlottesville facilities are being revamped for ALMA support as the North American ALMA Science Center and initial ALMA Operations funding is an element of the President's budget for NRAO recently delivered to Congress.  The focus of the workshop will be on ALMA and its scientist users.

Astronomers are invited to discuss
* ALMA's scientific goals and how best to enable them,
* Science goals which might be accomplished during the ALMA Early Science Phase
* The face ALMA presents to its scientists users through the North    American ALMA Science Center.
* Prioritization of the receiver bands for which funding will come during operations--those at 31-45 GHz, 68-90 GHz and 163-211 GHz.

The conference will be organized into non-paralleled plenary sessions that are each about 2-½ hours in duration beginning each day, and one paralleled workshop session on individual topics on Friday afternoon.

During the Friday Plenary session there will be discussion of ALMA and the Design Reference Science Plan, followed by talks on main ALMA science themes:
         o Galaxies and Cosmology: A. Blain (Caltech) (40 minutes)
         o Star and Planet Formation: N. J. Evans (U. Texas) (40 minutes)
         o Stars and Their Evolution: M. Meixner (STScI) (20 minutes)
         o Solar Systems Near and Far: M. Gurwell (CfA) (20 minutes)
During the Friday workshop sessions, there will be discussion of the science cases, including presentations on current research by those present if they wish.  ALMA will begin observations as soon as enough antennas are available to make that attractive--most likely with 6 antennas by 2008. An overview of what that skeletal ALMA could be able to provide will be presented for feedback on whether that set of observing modes is optimal, or whether some effort should be expended on a somewhat different mode mix.  Users will be asked for input on Early Science projects which would be interesting to them, as ALMA plans to develop an Early Science Plan to complement the DRSP (which refers only to full operation of ALMA).

This will be followed by the Poster Session and Banquet, after which Paul vanden Bout will relate "The Long Random Walk to ALMA". This will be followed by a cash bar and after-dinner discussion on the topic: Building the ALMA User community: Funding, faculty, facilities

On Saturday, those present will again meet in plenary session for presentation of poster summaries and reports from the working groups.  This will be
followed by a discussion of plans for The North American ALMA Science Center.

3. Abstracts and Posters

Please provide an abstract for your poster.  Please use LaTeX style forms such as are used for the Star Formation Newsletter, available at http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~reipurth/newsletter/macro.tex  A booklet of posters will be made available at the meeting.

REMINDER: Abstracts of your talks or posters are DUE NO LATER THAN:
April 15th

for publication in the booklet.   The booklet which will be made available to participants at the Conference and electronically on the Web site of the Conference about one week in advance. A copy of the Conference Abstracts will be provided to the Astrophysics Data System (ADS).  These will have to be prepared in LaTeX following instructions that are on the WWW. 

POSTER SPACE IS NOT GUARANTEED UNLESS THE ABSTRACT IS RECEIVED WITH
A COMPLETED REGISTRATION FORM, WHICH INCLUDES THE REGISTRATION FEE, BY APRIL 15, 2004

Poster dimensions are limited to 4' x 4'. Thumbtacks will be provided. Poster boards will be installed on Friday morning allowing you to prepare your poster display during the lunch break. Details about the location of the individual posters will be included with the conference materials you will receive upon registration.

4. Conference Output

Conference results will consist of revisions and additions to the ALMA Design Reference Science Plan.

5. Transportation

Details, including a map are available at the meeting WWW site:
http://www.nrao.edu/almaworkshop/accomodations.shtml

College Park, a suburb of Washington, D. C., is served by three major airports. Most convenient to the workshop venue is Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport, which lies to the north, and has convenient rail access to the city.  BWI is served by Icelandic Airways and by Southwest Airlines, along with most major airlines, and frequently boasts the most reasonably priced fares.  More details may be found on the website at:
http://www.nrao.edu/almaworkshop/transportation.shtml
College Park is close to the city of Washington, D.C., but the Baltimore-Washington International Airport is closer than either National or Dulles Airports (although transportation can be arranged from any of the three). Click here for other local information.

6. Accommodations

7. Registration

The Registration Fee for pre-registered (prior to April 15, 2004) attendees will be $150.  The fee for late registrants will be $180. The registration fee includes lunches and light refreshments served throughout the conference and a banquet on Friday evening, May 14. We hope to have sufficient resources to allow registration waivers for a limited number of students and post-docs who have no individual or institutional support. The criteria utilized to select registration waivers will be a combination of need and the quality of the submitted abstract. 

For additional information, including arranging accommodations for individuals with disabilities or special requirements:

        Telephone: 301-405-1507

Pre-Registration for: ALMA Science Workshop

Modified on Monday, 15-Mar-2004 10:20:48 MST