ALMA Update

Published: 17 Dec 2020
Eight ALMA antennas on Chajnantor*

During the COVID-19 pandemic the European ARC Network continues to provide support for PIs and users of archival data. More specifically the European ARC Network is offering a series of topical trainings called I-TRAIN. The next appointment is on January 15th, 2021, with an online training on UVMultiFit, a versatile library for fitting models directly to visibility data. More information on this event can be found at this link and upcoming trainings will be soon advertised on the European ARC Announcements page.

Two ALMA 2030 development studies, led by the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD) at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, have recently started. The first one will develop new processes to fabricate small size SIS junctions, which are at the heart of the ALMA receivers. These smaller junction sizes are required to extend the instantaneous bandwidth of the receivers (please read more information here). The second study,  will complement the SIS process study to investigate the impact of a significant increase in the IF bandwidth on all the receiver components (please read more information here).