Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.naic.edu/alfa/memos/archived/decl_of_interest.ps Дата изменения: Sat May 4 01:54:51 2002 Дата индексирования: Sat Dec 22 16:35:24 2007 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: mercury program

NATIONAL ASTRONOMY AND IONOSPHERE CENTER
Call for declaration of interest by potential users of
The Arecibo L-band Feed Array
The Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) will provide seven feeds, operating simultaneously at
the focal plane of the Arecibo 305-m radio telescope. Each will be sensitive to frequencies between
1225 MHz and 1525 MHz and provide two linear polarizations. Expected system temperatures are
25 K, with telescope gain 10K/Jy (http://alfa.naic.edu) for the central beam. The scientic
potential of such an array is clearly illustrated by the great success of the Parkes Multi-Beam surveys
for pulsars and HI.
Possible key scientic projects for ALFA include:
 Wide area pulsar surveys,
 Galactic HI surveys,
 Recombination Line surveys,
 Extragalactic HI surveys,
 Continuum surveys,
 SETI surveys.
The goal of this call is to identify individuals interested in preparing the scientic case for projects
using ALFA (such as those listed above), and participating in one or more of these projects.
As with other NAIC receivers, ALFA will be available for smaller projects, which will compete
for telescope time with both the key projects and research using other receivers via the NAIC peer
review procedure. These may complement the larger key projects, but their scientic goals should
be clearly distinguishable.
To better dene the scientic goals of the key projects, explore possible coordination among
key projects, organize individual eorts and promote the timely publication of results, NAIC is
encouraging the formation of \consortia" by those interested in participating in these projects.
These consortia will operate under the following rules:
 Consortium membership should be open to anybody prepared to commit eort to a key
project,
 All software developed for the data reduction of a key project will become publicly available
once it is well tested and documented,
 All data and/or data products will be archived and made publicly available no more than 12
months after acquisition (still under discussion),
 Results will be published in full in a timely manner.
NAIC will be organizing workshops at the Arecibo Observatory for potential members of con-
sortia. The objectives of these workshops include:
 Dening the major scientic goals of each key project,
 Developing the rules which will govern consortia,
 Dividing tasks according to need and skill, which will include selecting a PI and a contact
person at NAIC,
 Advising NAIC on the development of ALFA and associated backends.

To register your interest in participating in one or more key projects, to learn more about ALFA,
or to express your opinion on its development, please visit http://alfa.naic.edu. On this web site
you can sign up to receive information, or to register your interest in being involved with workshops
for planning ALFA observations. We will contact all of those who have indicated their interest
before July 1,2002, and work with you on nding optimum dates for the rst series of Workshops at
the Arecibo Observatory. These will start before the end of 2002, so don't delay in declaring your
interest so you can be involved from the very start. We hope to be able to provide partial support
for attending these meetings.
You can also contact any member of the Radio Astronomy Department at the Arecibo Obser-
vatory. We encourage participation from a wide range of interested scientists and look forward to
your help in ensuring that the best science possible is carried out with ALFA.
Paul Goldsmith, Director, NAIC (pfg@astro.cornell.edu)
Daniel Altschuler, Director, Arecibo Observatory (daniel@naic.edu)
Chris Salter, Head, Radio Astronomy Department (csalter@naic.edu)
The National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center is operated by Cornell University under a cooper-
ative agreement with the National Science Foundation.