Welcome to the European ALMA Regional Centre Newsletter!
This monthly newsletter is a compilation of recent European ALMA Regional Centre news and announcements, showcases an exciting ALMA science result by European colleagues and announces upcoming ALMA and ALMA-related meetings and I-TRAIN sessions. In the "Meet the ARC" section, the work of ARC personnel and the services and expertise areas of an ARC node are highlighted. Every month, you can learn an incredible ALMA fact in "Did you know" and give your opinion about a particular ALMA matter in the "Poll of the month". You can also connect with the European ALMA Regional Centre via social media!
An international team of astronomers and engineers at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have made the first measurements using new receivers installed on multiple ALMA antennas. The receivers allow to observe within the final frequency range — with wavelengths between 2.6 to 4.5 millimeters (67-116 GHz) — for which it was designed. Band 2 opens a new window into our cosmic origins, allowing measurements that reveal how distant stars and galaxies form, all the way down to the origins of planets and the building blocks of life.
The demand for the European ARC CalMS service (https://almascience.eso.org/tools/eu-arc-network/the-european-arc-calms-service) has been roughly constant since the beginning of 2023 at 100 MOUSs/month. The 3000th MOUS was served at the end of July 2023 (counting since January 2020). The service will continue as it is for the foreseeable future.
Evolution of ALMA time requested on the 12-m (blue), 7-m (red) and Total Power (green) arrays from Cycle 0 to 10.
In Cycle 10, the ALMA observatory received a total of 1679 proposals for a requested 29508 hours for the 12-m array (4300 hours offered), 16109 hours for the 7-m and 15904 hours for the Total Power array. This is once again a rise in the number of requested observing hours for the 12-m array.
For the ACA standalone array, there were 91 proposals submitted (with, respectively, 3891 and 2653 hours requested for the 7-m and total power array). The number of Large Programs submitted in Cycle 10 increased to 44, requesting 4964 hours on the 12-m array, 4148 hours on the 7-m array and 4448 hours on the Total Power array.
Receiving observing time with ALMA is still difficult. The overall oversubscription rate is 6.9, and it is the highest in Europe (8.4), compared to 6.4 in North America, 6.2 in East Asia and 3.5 in Chile. 40% of the submitted proposals had a European Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI.
Cycle 10 was the first cycle in which joint proposals with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Very Large Array (VLA) and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) could be submitted. Fourty-two proposals were submitted, requesting 204 hours on the JWST, 115 hours on the VLA, and 88 hours on the VLT.
ALMA reveals the interplay between the multiphase disk, wind and radio bubble in a nearby AGN-host galaxy
Cold molecular gas, dust, warm ionized gas and radio emission in the AGN-host galaxy NGC 2992. Cold molecular gas (left panel) and dust distribution (central panel) from CO(2-1) and 1.3 mm continuum observations with the ALMA 12 m array. Ionized gas velocity field (right panel) traced by Hα emission observed with the Very Large Telescope (VLT)/MUSE. Black contours trace the radio bubble observed at 6 cm with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).
ALMA observations of the nearby Seyfert galaxy NGC 2992 have been combined with MUSE data from the Very Large Telescope and Very Large Array data to characterize the gas kinematics in the disk, wind and radio bubble and their interplay. Zanchettin et al (2023) find that the CO(2-1) and Hα emission arise from a multiphase disk almost edge-on, where also a co-spatial dust reservoir is detected. The analysis of the gas kinematics reveals that the turbulence is enhanced only in the region between the warm ionized cone walls and the disk, where the wind interacts with the host galaxy disk. On a few kpc scale, the wind is multiphase, with a fast ionized component, exceeding -1000 km/s, and a slower but more massive molecular one, detected as clumps of gas located above and below the disk.
The dusty molecular outflowing clumps and the turbulent ionized gas are located at the edges of the radio bubbles, suggesting that the bubbles interact with the surrounding medium through shocks. Conversely, the dynamical timescale of the ionized wind detected in the ionization cones out to 7 kpc scales indicates that this is not related to the radio bubbles but instead likely associated with a previous AGN episode. Finally, the dust reservoir is likely responsible for the extended Fe Kα emission seen on a few hundred pc scales in hard X-rays and interpreted as reflection by cold dust.
This work highlights the importance of combining ALMA data with multiband observation to infer the AGN impact on the galaxy host in nearby objects.
Meet the ARC
Dr. Katharina Immer
Katharina joined the ARC at ESO at the beginning of 2023. Before that, she worked at the Allegro ARC node in the Netherlands for two years. At ESO, she is the subsystem scientist for the Snooping Project Interface (SnooPI) and the deputy subsystem scientist for the Observing Tool. She is the European helpdesk administrator and editor of the European ARC newsletter. She is also involved in various other activies, for example Phase 2 support.
Scientifically, Katharina is interested in high-mass star formation, particularly at the center of our Galaxy. She uses maser observations, conducted with Very Long Baseline Interferometry, to measure distances and proper motions to study how gas clouds move within the Galactic Centre. She is also part of the ALMA Large Program ACES.
Join the online ALMA training events!
The European ARC Network invites you to the next session of the online training series I-TRAIN, which will be:
Introduction to Data Combination - 21st September 2023
You can find further details on this session below. You can access or subscribe to the calendar of sessions at [calendar URL][iCal address].
Please contact us by submitting a ticket to the ALMA HelpDesk (Department "General Queries") if you wish to provide your feedback on I-TRAIN. Information on the I-TRAIN sessions, including legacy materials and links to YouTube videos from previous sessions, are available in the Science Portal.
that ALMA is observing in its most extended configuration in August? And that some of the antenna pads have now been populated for the first time ever? C-10 covers baselines from 244 to 16200 m. In Cycle 9, this configuration provides a maximal angular resolution of 0.0091" in Band 8 and a maximal recoverable scale of 0.5" in Band 3.
