European ARC polarization internal workshop

School-Workshop on polarization with ALMA 25-28 June 2013 - Istituto di Radioastronomia Bologna, Italy

The Italian node of the European ALMA Regional Centre organizes a 4-day meeting dedicated to the members of the European ARC, on the subject of polarization in the mm-band with ALMA, to be held at the INAF-Istituto di Radioastronomia (Bologna, Italy) on 25-28 June 2013.

As the commissioning for polarization with ALMA is on its way, we consider it is time to interact with people who know the instrumental properties and with those who are working on the data reduction tasks. The purpose is to reach a better understanding of the polarization issues in the mm-band, both from the scientific and the observational points of view, focussing on how ALMA is going to operate and how we should deal with ALMA polarization data in order to provide optimal user support and to maximize the ALMA data scientific outcome.

For these reasons we dedicate a 4-day meeting to mm-band polarization with ALMA, which will consist of two parts: a 2-day 'school' (25-26 June) for a limited number (to allow better interaction) of 20 members of the European ALMA Regional Centre and associated nodes, to review the main issues of mm-band polarization, the ALMA properties and the CASA algorithms to address data reduction in polarization, and to provide a set of basic tools for user support for polarization projects; the 'school' part will include a hands-on tutorial on ALMA data in polarization to be held on the second day; and a 2-day 'workshop' (27-28 June) to discuss which activities could be and/or are already being undertaken by the European ARC-nodes, and how we could better coordinate them. The 'workshop' part is dedicated to all the members of the ARC nodes interested in polarimetry, who are also invited to contribute with talks.

Lectures for the 'school' part will be held by Ed Fomalont (NRAO/Chile; ALMA polarization commissioning), George Moelle[Fomalont]nbrock (NRAO; CASA lead developer for polarization), and Hiroshi Nagai (NAOJ) who will also be present at the workshop.

At the workshop there is room for a few contributing talks (ca. 20 min), either on polarimetry-science (what do we hope to achieve with ALMA) or of a more technical nature (CASA polarization reduction strategies, algorithms, calibration data bases).

Program

School part

Tuesday, 25/6

   10:00 - 10:05 Introduction [Brand]
   10:05 - 11:25 ALMA polarimetry-from astronomical sources to correlated data [Fomalont]Fomalont_polarization.pdf
   11:35 - 12:00 Coffee/Tea berak
   12:00 - 13:20 Synthesis polarimetry fundamentals for ALMA [Moellenbrock] Moellenbrock_1.pdf
   13:30               Lunch
   14:30 - 16:00 ALMA polarimetry calibration in CASA [Moellenbrock]

Wednesday, 26/6

   10:00 - 13:20 Hands-on practical tutorial using ALMA data [Fomalont, Moellenbrock, Nagai]. 
   Coffee/Tea break at about 11:15 (ca. 20 min)
   13:30               Lunch

Workshop part

Thursday, 27/6

   10:00 - 13:30 Science session (chair: Brand), with
   10:00 - 10:10 Introduction [Massardi]
   10:10 - 11:00 Polarization science with ALMA [Vlemmings] Vlemmings.pdf
   11:00 - 11:20 Coffee/Tea break 
   11:20 - 11:50 Synchrotron polarization with ALMA [Laing] Laing.pdf
   11:50 - 12:20 Extended extragalactic source polarization with ATCA and perspectives for ALMA [Massardi] Massardi_1.pdf
   12:20 - 12:50 Recent ALMA polarization commissioning results and remaining questions [Nagai] Nagai.pdf
   12:50 - 13:20 Discussion session (co-chair: Vlemmings) on polarization science topics and proposal preparations: 
                 collection of polarization-related science cases that will be of general interest, what is needed 
                 for them in ALMA/AOT/CASA? Ideas/Caveats for proposal submission for polarization 
                 (i.e. what to know to give useful support in phase 1). 

13:30 Lunch

14:30 - 18:00 Commissioning activities session (chair: Mignano), with:

   14:30 - 15:00 Anticipated ALMA polarization commissioning activities leading to the 
                 already defined Cycle-2 polarization observing limitations [Fomalont] commissioning.pdf
   15:00 - 15:30 A search for a line polarization calibration catalogue for ALMA [F.Alves] Alves.pdf
   15:30 - 16:00 Ancillary databases in polarization of extragalactic sources [M. Massardi] Massardi_2.pdf
   16:00 - 16:20 Coffee/Tea break
   16:20 - 18:00 Discussion session (co-chair: Richards) on polarization commissioning activities/status 
                 with particular emphasis on calibration issues. Finding suitable polarization calibrators. 
                 Collaboration on observations activities also with other telescopes. 
                 Collection of suggestions for science verification science cases.

Friday, 28/6

10:00 - 13:30 CASA and organizative future plans session (chair: Boissier), with:

   10:00 - 10:30 Summary talk on status & plans for polarization in CASA [Moellenbrock] Moellenbrock_2.pdf
   10:30 - 13:20 Continuing Discussion session (co-chair: Laing) 
                 on polarization commissioning activities/status with emphasis on organizational issues 
                 in the next months and beyond. Discussion session on polarization algorithms, reduction strategies; 
                 looking beyond Cycle-2 pol. observations. Discussion to motivate a collaboration on 
                 algorithm/reduction activities over the next 9 months and beyond, as the relatively conservative 
                 Cycle-2 capabilities are expanded, and reduction strategies and methods are refined. 

   Coffee/Tea break at about 11:00 (ca. 20min)
   13:30                 Lunch

14:30 - 17:00 Summing-up and future plans session (chair: Massardi), with:

   14:30 - 17:00 Discussion session (co-chair: Andreani) about what has to be done on short term 
                 and polarization-related efforts and assignment for short term activities. 
                 Interaction between ARCs/JAO/CSV. General ideas on long-term program. 

  Coffee/Tea break at about 15:45 (ca. 20min).

Registration

Please fill in the registration form. No registration fee is requested. Registration deadline is April 30th.

Please indicate if you are interested to participate only to the workshop, to the school, or to both parts, and whether you wish to make a short presentation for the workshop part.

Only the 'school' part will be limited to 20 participants. We will prioritize the participation to at least one member of each EU ARC node, and confirm participation to the first registered member from each node; the remaining places will be allocated on a "first come first serve" basis.

For students/early career scientists who participate in the School-part: some financial support may be available through RadioNet if your institute cannot fully support you. One can indicate whether support is requested by ticking the appropriate box on the form.

Please indicate your interest to participate to the social dinner and whether you have any dietary requirements.

Tutorial & Videocon

The tutorial will be run on the local ARC cluster. Access details will be circulated to the participants before the meeting. A videocon session can be organized for a restricted number of participants for the school and the workshop sessions but not during the tutorial. Access details will be circulated to the participants in due course.

Venue, Logistics & contacts

The meeting will be held at the Istituto di Radioastronomia, via Gobetti 101, Bologna. Directions to reach the campus can be found here. Hotels close to the campus are listed here. For any request please contact the Italian ARC

help-desk@alma.inaf.it