Welcome to the European ALMA Regional Centre Newsletter!
This monthly newsletter is a compilation of recent European ALMA Regional Centre news and announcements, showcasing an exciting ALMA science result by European colleagues. Every month, you can learn an interesting ALMA fact in "Did you know" and give your opinion about a particular ALMA matter in the "Poll of the month".
ORP (Opticon Radionet Pilot) funding remains available till the end of 2024 for travel to one of the European ALMA Regional Centre nodes in Europe, for ALMA users who need face-to-face support for their ALMA projects. Users wishing to apply for ORP funding should fill out the form in addition to submitting a Helpdesk ticket that is required to arrange the ARC node visit. Face-to-face visits to ARC nodes can be arranged for assistance with data calibration and analysis, proposal preparation, and archive research projects.
This announcement provides updated information regarding the Cycle 11 Call for Proposals (CfP) deadline submission issues experienced by some ALMA users.
Since the start of ALMA operations, the Nordic ARC node has enthusiastically organised annual events to support the ALMA user community with their proposal preparations. Over the past couple of years, the node has also arranged an annual event to foster collaboration and engagement among ALMA users in Sweden and other Nordic countries, which has now started to be called "The Nordic ALMA Day". One of the main aims of this event is to bring together astronomers and researchers to share insights and discuss topics relevant to the ALMA user community.
A new ALMA development study to automatically extract spectral line sources from ALMA data cubes and derive advanced data products from them had its kick-off meeting on 3 June 2024 in Gothenburg (Sweden).
A detailed report of the Cycle 11 Proposal Submission Statistics is now available. The report provides a summary of items such as the number of submitted proposals and time requested, subscription rates, and comparisons with the number of hours requested in previous Cycles.
Come and visit the ARC Stand at EAS 2024 and win your own little ALMA plant!
The European ARC network will have an exhibition stand at the upcoming European Astronomical Society meeting that will take place in Padova, Italy, from July 1 - 5. Staff from the nodes within the European ARC network will be present to discuss with you how the ARC network can support your ALMA science, address any questions you may have on the spot and explain the exciting major upgrades ALMA will see in the coming years. Take part in the daily ALMA quiz to win your own ALMA plant, pick up some of the free memorabilia and get to know other ALMA users.
ALMA science highlight
ALMA reveals a compact and massive outflow of cold-molecular gas accelerated by the supermassive black hole in a galaxy merger
Left panel (a): Integrated ALMA CO(1-0) flux map of the velocity channels between 400<v<680 km s-1, showing the position of the cold-molecular AGN-driven outflow relative to the AGN position (white cross) and the AGN-jet (seen in VLBI 1266 MHz continuum imaging; blue contours) at the position of the primary nucleus of F13451+1232. Right panel (b): CO(1-0) line profile extracted from the aperture that covers the outflow in the ALMA observations (shown as a dashed black ellipse in the left panel) - the part of the line profile that is taken to represent a cold-molecular gas outflow is shaded in yellow.
Models of galaxy evolution require that accreting supermassive black holes (known as active galactic nuclei, or AGN) in the centres of galaxy mergers accelerate prominent outflows of gas, either via radiation pressure or plasma jets impacting the interstellar medium. An ideal object to verify this situation observationally is F13451+1232 (also known as 4C 12.50): a galaxy merger that hosts a luminous AGN in its primary nucleus. Outflows accelerated by the AGN in this object have been previously detected and characterised in warm-ionised-gas (T~10,000 K) and neutral-atomic-gas (T~2000 K) emission - these outflows are compact (r<100pc), and less powerful than models of galaxy evolution require. However, crucially, there had not yet been a robust detection of molecular-gas outflows in F13451+1232, which may be more powerful and extended.
Using high-spatial-resolution (0.11x0.09 arcsecond or 250x120 pc beam-size) ALMA Band 3 observations, covering the CO(1-0) emission line, Holden et al. 2024 find evidence for a molecular component of the compact outflows in the primary nucleus of F13451+1232. Importantly, the mass outflow rate (~230 solar masses per year) and kinetic power (~1.4% of the bolometric luminosity of the host AGN) of this cold-molecular outflow are orders of magnitude higher than those of the outflows previously detected in warm-ionised and neutral-atomic emission, and indicate that the outflow may have a significant effect on the future evolution of the system. In addition, by comparing the spatial extent and position of the cold-molecular outflow seen in the ALMA observations to that of the small-scale (r~130pc) AGN-jet seen in VLBI continuum imaging, the authors argue that the outflows in this object are accelerated by shocks induced in the interstellar medium by the jet.
Overall, this study by Holden et al. demonstrates that multi-wavelength observations are required to determine the total impact that AGN-driven outflows have on their host galaxies: without the high-resolution ALMA observations, the total mass and kinetic power of the outflow would have been significantly underestimated, and thus the interpretation regarding its impact on the host galaxy would have been drastically different. Moreover, in demonstrating that cold-molecular AGN-driven outflows can be compact (r<120 pc), this study emphasises that high-spatial-resolution observations are crucial for robustly quantifying their properties and hence their true roles in galaxy evolution.
ALMA poll results March 2024
ALMA poll results April 2024
Did you know...
that Large Programs need to produce high level data products and corresponding documentation and deliver these to the archive? PIs of Large Programs can request assistance from their local ARCs for the preparation of these data products. More information can be found here. A list of all approved ALMA Large Programs is here.
