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ALMA Science Advisory Committee


Teleconference, 5 March 2003


Minutes accepted 28 April 2003


Participants: R. Booth, C. Carilli, P. Cox, N. Evans, Y. Fukui
S. Guilloteau, M. Ishiguro, R. Lucas, J. Mangum, D. Mardones,
M. Momose, L. Mundy, P. Myers, J. Richer, P. Schilke, J. Turner
C. Wilson, S. Yamamoto, M. Yun


The proposed agenda was adopted, and the minutes of the February
teleconference were accepted. Chris Wilson welcomed the new North American
members Chris Carilli, Phil Myers, and Jean Turner. She also welcomed
John Richer as the new European vice-chair and proposed that the ASAC
send a thank you letter to outgoing ASAC members from North America
and Europe.


1) Status Report

In the absence of other participants from the JAO, Stephane Guilloteau
gave a brief status report. The bilateral agreement between ESO and NSF
was signed in Washington D.C. as part of the first ALMA Board meeting
last week. Masumo Tarenghi has been offered and has 
accepted the position of ALMA Director. One of the action items
from the Board meeting was to prepare a general and specific charge
for the next ASAC meeting; hopefully this will be passed on to the
ASAC soon. For the next ASAC meeting in April, the five continuing
members from Europe will be present; the new ESAC will choose
its new members at a later meeting, probably in May. Upcoming
meetings in the project in March are the Software PDR and the
AMAC meeting. Outside the ALMA project, the technical review of AIPS++ is
happening this week. ALMA week is planned for the first week of
June in Victoria, B.C., Canada

Pierre Cox asked how long it was anticipated it would take to fill
the rest of the positions at the JAO; this is not known but is
being expedited as much as possible. John Richer asked whether the
Science IPT was expected to meet during ALMA week; ALMA week attendance will 
be by invitation only and it is not anticipated that the whole Science
IPT will be invited.

Jeff Mangum reported briefly on the status of the North American and
European prototype antennas. The provisional delivery date for the 
Vertex antenna is now March 19, but with a preliminary servo; the final
drive motor is expected to be installed in early April. The testing team has
been able to make progress in areas such as optical pointing when
the contractor is not on site. The foundation for the European
antenna is finished and some parts of the Alcatel antenna have arrived.
In response to a question from Pierre Cox, Jeff said that 
it is still planned to report on the test by the end of the year (January
2004).

2) Board Meeting Items

Chris Wilson reported on the reaction of the ALMA Board to her interim
report at the Board meeting last week. She felt the reaction was
generally positive; she was asked for more details on the use of
the science examples for calibration and also whether it was the
role of the ASAC to comment on software issues such as AIPS++. She also
reported that the ASAC will receive a charge from the Board for the
April face-to-face meeting, but that the final wording of that charge
was not yet available.

Various ASAC members asked for more information about the draft charges,
especially since the very short time between now and the face-to-face
meeting does not allow for a lot of work by ASAC members. Stephane
Guilloteau and Chris Wilson said that the current draft version of 
the charges seems
to be workable, as the ASAC is primarily asked to comment on reports
from various IPTs rather than to delve into detailed studies itself.
One item that is not on our draft face-to-face agenda that seems
likely to be added is the issue of an inhomogeneous array, where
inhomogeneous here means an array all of
12 m antennas but made by more than one vendor.

As a result of discussions on the software issue, it was suggested
that the summary of the questionnaires from the November meeting at
ESO should be forwarded to Steve Myers and Tim Cornwell on the
AIPS++ team. Chris Wilson will ask Ewine van Dishoeck to do this
as European Project Scientist.

3) Draft Face-to-face Agenda

Chris Wilson led a discussion of the agenda for the April face-to-face 
meeting; an updated agenda is attached. The main changes were 
folding the site report into the status report and adding a discussion
of the inhomogeneous array design.

4) Logistics of the face-to-face meeting

Stephane Guilloteau said that 
invitations will be sent by March 6. 25 rooms have been held at
the Hotel IBIS CENTRE (Downtown Grenoble, 10 minutes by Tramway
from IRAM, 10 minutes from Railway Station).
Cathy Berjaud will handle the logistics for IRAM and there are
plans to set up a video link with NRAO so that Chris Carilli
can participate in the afternoon sessions. 

5) Next ASAC telecon: April 30, 1430 UT = 10:30 EDT