Call for Proposals for Cycle 4
For the full information of Call for Proposals for Cycle 4, please visit the Call for Proposal webpage
The ALMA Director, on behalf of the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) and the partner organizations in East Asia, Europe, and North America, is pleased to announce the ALMA Cycle 4 Call for Proposals (CfP) for scientific observations to be scheduled from October 2016 to September 2017. It is anticipated that up to 3000 hours of the 12-m Array and up to 1800 hours of the Atacama Compact Array (ACA), also known as the Morita Array, will be available for successful proposals from Principal Investigators (PIs) in Cycle 4. Proposals must be prepared and submitted using the ALMA Observing Tool (OT), which is available for download from the ALMA Science Portal (www.almascience.org). Proposals will be assessed by competitive peer review by a single international review committee.
Cycle 4 Capabilities
The Cycle 4 capabilities are:
Number of antennas
- Forty (40) antennas in the 12-m Array
- Ten (10) 7-m antennas (for short baselines) and three (3) 12-m antennas (for making single-dish maps) in the ACA
Receiver bands
- Receiver Bands 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10 (wavelengths of about 3.1, 2.1, 1.3, 0.87, 0.74, 0.44, and
0.35 mm, respectively)
12-m Array Configurations
- Nine configurations with maximum baselines from 155 m to 12.6 km
- Maximum baselines of 3.7 km for Bands 8, 9 and 10
- Maximum baselines of 6.8 km for Band 7
- Maximum baselines of 12.6 km for Bands 3, 4, & 6
- Files containing representative antenna configurations for both the 12-m and 7-m Arrays suitable for CASA simulations are available from the ALMA Science portal
Spectral line, continuum, and mosaic observations
- Spectral line and continuum observations with the 12-m Array and the 7-m Array in all bands
- Single field interferometry (all bands) and mosaics (Bands 3 to 9) with the 12-m Array and the 7-m Array
- Single-dish spectral line observations in Bands 3 to 8
Polarization
- Single pointing, on axis, full polarization capabilities for continuum and full spectral resolution observations in Bands 3, 6 and 7 on the 12-m Array
Cycle 4 observing modes are classified as standard or non-standard. Standard modes have been well characterized and the observations can be calibrated with the ALMA data reduction pipeline. Non-standard modes are not as well characterized and require manual calibration by ALMA staff. The Cycle 4 non-standard modes include:
- Bands 8, 9 & 10 observations
- Band 7 observations with maximum baselines > 6 km
- All polarization observations
- Spectral Scans
- Bandwidth switching projects (less than 1GHz aggregate bandwidths over all spectral windows) Solar Observations
- VLBI observations
- Non-standard calibrations (user-defined calibrations selected in the OT)
Proposal Submission
The ALMA Science Portal at
www.almascience.org is the principal resource for scientific users. All proposals must be prepared and submitted electronically using the
ALMA Observing Tool (OT) software.
A LaTeX template is recommended for the preparation of the proposal scientific justification.
Registration at the Science Portal is required for ALMA proposal submission.
The proposal submission deadline is 15:00 UT on Thursday 21 April 2016.
Important dates
The key Cycle 4 dates follow. ALMA reserves the right to alter these dates.
| Date |
Milestone |
| 22 March 2016 (15:00UT) |
Release of Cycle 4 Call for Proposals, Observing Tool & supporting documents and Opening of the Archive for proposal submission |
| 21 April 2016 (15:00UT) |
Science Archive opens for proposal submission |
| August 2016 |
Announcement of the Outcome of the Proposal ReviewProcess |
| September 2016 |
Submission of Phase 2 by PIs |
| October 2016 |
Start of ALMA Cycle 4 Science observations |
| September 2017 |
End of ALMA Cycle 4 |
