To keep ALMA at the forefront of technology, ESO collaborates closely with the member state institutes, who are invited to submit proposals for development studies through a call for proposals issued by the contracts and procurements department. The evaluation of the latest call has now been completed and seven new agreements have been signed. Five of these studies are directly supporting the ALMA wideband sensitivity upgrade (WSU), an ambitious project to increase ALMA's instantaneous bandwidth by up to four times. The two remaining studies are working to bring advanced data products for ALMA and exploring the science cases for focal plane arrays on ALMA.
New ALMA Development Studies
Published: 20 Feb 2024
The full list of approved development studies is:
- Development of InP MMIC based Wideband Low-Noise Amplifiers for the Next Generation ALMA Receivers, PI Juan Daniel Gallego, Observatorio de Yebes, Spain
- TASER: Towards ALMA System on Chip European Receivers, PI Danielle George, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
- Towards a Producible ALMA2030-Ready Band 9 CCA, PI Ronald Hesper, NOVA, The Netherlands
- Streaming visibility processing for ALMA, PI Stefan Wijnholds, Astron, The Netherlands
- Advanced waveguide component technologies, PI Victor Belistky, GARD/Chalmers, Sweden
- Science cases and technical considerations for ALMA focal plane arrays, PI Georgios Magdis, DTU, Denmark
- ALMA Spectral Line Advanced Data Product Pipeline Prototype, PI Kelley Hess, OSO/Chalmers, Sweden
These studies will run for a period of two to three years, and allow the ESO member state institutes to take calculated risks to develop ambitious new technologies. Many previous studies have led to an implementation as development projects, such as Band 5, Band 2 and the new digitizers. The collaboration with the member state institutes is essential for ESO to advance towards delivering the WSU to the ALMA users. It is expected that this development will continue well into the next decade, and institutes interested to get involved in future studies are encouraged to contact ESO through the coordinator of the development studies.