ALMA REGIONAL CENTRE

该提案是为欧洲ALMA区域中心的英国节点提供资金，该节点将为英国ALMA社区提供直接的用户支持、培训和专门的实验设计、调度、数据分析和天体物理解释软件。阿塔卡马大型毫米波阵列（ALMA）目前正在智利北部由一个涉及17个国家的全球财团建造。ALMA将彻底改变毫米和亚毫米波段的天文学，其角度分辨率、灵敏度、成像质量和光谱覆盖范围将超过目前可用的数量级。科学应用的范围非常广泛，从彗星延伸到宇宙学，但ALMA的关键优势将是对我们自己的星系和整个宇宙中恒星和行星形成过程的详细成像，直接解决STFC天文学愿景的许多关键主题。ALMA的运作计划将所有用户互动和支持下放到美国、日本和欧洲的三个区域中心。虽然美国和日本的数据中心将是庞大而单一的，但欧洲的模式是分布式的，提案处理和基本数据提供基于Garching的ESO，所有面对面的用户支持和更先进的数据分析设施由国家层面资助的单个节点提供。其中最大的节点预计将在IRAM（格勒诺布尔）和英国，基于他们在亚毫米、毫米和厘米波长天文学和干涉测量方面的专业知识。因此，英国ARC节点提供了一个极好的机会，通过提供所需的设施和支持，使英国社区能够最大限度地利用ALMA。我们的目标是将已建立的单碟毫米/亚毫米社区的经验与来自MERLIN/VLBI国家设施以及已经参与开发关键子系统（档案，观测工具，校准系统）的英国团队的干涉测量专业知识结合起来。该提案提出了一个工作计划和人员结构，以建立一个专门的支持单位，为英国ALMA社区。会议将在曼彻斯特大学物理与天文学院的新楼里专门设计的办公室里举行。开发和支持工作也将以剑桥、牛津和爱丁堡为基地。英国ARC节点将为使用ALMA的各个方面提供培训、文件和一对一的支持，包括大型和小型项目的可行性研究、提案提交、观测调度、标准和非标准项目的数据分析、质量保证反馈和数据解释。将开发专门的模拟软件来优化实验设计和评估图像质量。将根据英国的具体需要开发大型和复杂项目的数据简化技术。我们要求提供资金，以建立和运作阿尔玛区域中心的英国节点。目前正在智利建造的阿塔卡马大型毫米波阵列（ALMA）是有史以来最复杂、最雄心勃勃的地面天文台，通过我们的ESO成员资格，英国可以为一个庞大的英国用户社区获得大约10%的总观测时间。英国ARC节点将教育、发展和支持英国天文学家在从行星科学到宇宙学的所有领域充分利用ALMA进行科学研究。ALMA将是一种复杂的仪器，大多数英国用户将不熟悉毫米干涉仪的观测、校准、成像和解释技术。

This proposal is for funding of the UK node of the European ALMA Regional Centre, which will provide the UK ALMA community with direct user support, training and specialized software for experiment design, scheduling, data analysis and astrophysical interpretation. The Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) is currently being constructed in northern Chile by a global consortium involving 17 nations. ALMA will revolutionise astronomy in the millimetre and sub-millimetre band with angular resolution, sensitivity, imaging quality and spectral coverage orders of magnitude beyond what is available today. The range of scientific applications is very broad, stretching from comets to cosmology, but the ALMA's key strength will be detailed imaging of the processes of star and planet formation in our own galaxy and in the universe at large, directly addressing many of the key themes of STFC's astronomical vision. The operating plan for ALMA devolves all user interaction and support to three regional centres (ARCs) in US, Japan and Europe. While the US and Japanese centres will be large and monolithic, the European model is a distributed one, with proposal handling and basic data provision based at ESO in Garching and all face-to-face user support and more advanced data analysis facilities provided by individual nodes funded at the national level. The largest of these nodes are expected to be at IRAM (Grenoble) and in the UK, building on their expertise in sub-mm, mm and cm-wavelength astronomy and interferometry. The UK ARC node therefore offers an excellent opportunity to enable the UK community to make the best possible use of ALMA, by providing the facilities and support required. We aim to bring together experience from the established single dish mm/sub-mm community with interferometric expertise from the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility as well as UK teams already involved in developing key subsystems (archive, observing tool, calibration system) This proposal presents a work plan and staffing structure to establish a dedicated support unit for the UK ALMA community, which will be hosted in purpose-designed offices in a new building of the University of Manchester's School of Physics and Astronomy. Development and support effort will also be based at Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh. The UK ARC node will provide training, documentation and one-to-one support for every aspect of using ALMA including feasibility studies of large and small projects, proposal submission, observation scheduling, data analysis for standard and non-standard projects, quality assurance feedback and data interpretation. Specialised simulation software will be developed for optimizing experiment design and evaluating image quality. Data reduction techniques for large and complex projects will be developed in response to specific UK needs. We request funding to establish and operate the UK node of the ALMA Regional Centre. The Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA), currently being built in Chile, is the most complex and ambitious ground-based observatory ever built and through our ESO membership, the UK can expect to obtain approximately 10% of the total observing time for a substantial UK user community. The UK ARC node will educate, develop and support UK astronomers to make the best scientific use of ALMA in all areas from planetary science to cosmology. ALMA will be a complex instrument to use and the majority of UK users will be unfamiliar with the techniques of observing, calibration, imaging and interpretation for a millimetre interferometer .