European ARC polarization internal workshop

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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 databases).

Programme

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School

25th Jun 2013	Speaker	Title
10:00 – 10:05	Brand	Introduction
10:05 – 11:25	Fomalont	ALMA polarimetry-from astronomical sources to correlated data
11:35 – 12:00	Coffee break	—— ——
12:00 – 13:20	Moellenbrock	Synthesis polarimetry fundamentals for ALMA
13:30 – 14:30	Lunch	—— ——
14:30 – 16:00	Moellenbrock	ALMA polarimetry calibration in CASA
26th Jun 2013
10:00 – 11:15	Fomalont, Moellenbrock, Nagai	Hands-on practical tutorial using ALMA data (part I)
11:15 – 11:30	Coffee break	—— ——
11:30 – 13:30	Fomalont, Moellenbrock, Nagai	Hands-on practical tutorial using ALMA data (part II)
13:30 – 14:30	Lunch	—— ——

Workshop

27th Jun 2013	Speaker	Title
10:00 – 10:10	Massardi	Introduction
10:10 – 11:00	Vlemmings	Polarization science with ALMA
11:00 – 11:20	Coffee break	—— ——
11:20 – 11:50	Laing	Synchrotron polarization with ALMA
11:50 – 12:20	Massardi	Extended extragalactic source polarization with ATCA…
12:20 – 12:50	Nagai	Recent ALMA polarization commissioning results and …
12:50 – 13:20	Discussion session co-chair Vlemmings	Polarization science topic and proposal preparation: 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 – 15:00	Fomalont	Anticipated ALMA polarization commissioning activities polarization observing limitations
15:00 – 15:30	Alves	A search for a line polarization calibration catalogue for ALMA
15:30 – 16:00	Massardi	Ancillary databases in polarization of extragalactic sources
16:00 – 16:20	Coffee 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.
28th Jun 2013
10:00 – 10:30	Moellenbrock	Summary talk on status & plans for polarization in CASA
10:30 – 13:30	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.
13:30	Lunch
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.

Registration

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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

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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

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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