ALMA Participation of Taiwan

ASIAA joined the ALMA project in 2005 through a collaboration with ALMA-Japan (now ALMA-EA), and in 2008 also by means of a partnership in ALMA-NA. ASIAA thus plays a significant role in ALMA, providing access to this major ground-based facility to the Taiwanese astronomical community.

ASIAA is involved in several projects (for the contact person of each project please refer to here):

East-Asia Front End Integration Center (EA FEIC) (lead by ASIAA) The EA FEIC integrates the Front End components into Front End assemblies, tests all the integrated Front End assemblies, and ships them out to Chile.

Band-1/MMIC Development (lead by ASIAA) Development of several different MHEMT MMIC LNA designs, 31 - 50GHz GaAs PHEMT cascode mixers, and more.

Band-10 Mixer Development (ASIAA in collaboration with NAOJ) ASIAA has been working on the highest frequency (950 GHz) receiver band (Band 10), in collaboration with Japan, particularly focusing on the mixer design and fabrication.

Development of Alternative Laser Synthesizer (ALS) (ASIAA in collaboration with NAOJ) ASIAA in collaboration with NAOJ has developed an ALS based on a Mach-Zehnder Modulator technology to generate optical Local Oscillator references that can be distributed over long distances of fiber.

Development of LO Reference Test Module (LORTM) (lead by ASIAA) ASIAA has developed a Local Oscillator Reference Test Module (LORTM) for use as a test source at the East Asia Front End Integration Center (EA-FEIC).

Nutator Development (ASIAA on behalf of ALMA-NA) Under our close supervision, the ALMA nutator contract is nearing its completion.

Commissioning and Science Verification (CSV) activities (ASIAA in collaboration with ALMA-EA) The mission of the CSV is to test and to debug the scientific instruments of the ALMA, and to verify these performances are satisfying the requirements for the coming scientific observations.

Taiwan ALMA Regional Center (ARC) (ASIAA) The ARC provides an interface between the ALMA Observatory and the user community in each region from the stage of proposal preparation to actual data distribution and analysis.

Front End Service Vehicle (FESV) (finished 2011) (ASIAA on behalf of ALMA-NA) FESVs are a custom designed trucks packed with the equipment required to transport and service ALMA's temperature-sensitive astronomical equipment without removing a telescope from the working array.

Outreach activities (ASIAA) Public relation deals with news releases, press conferences and TV interviews.

Contribution of Taiwan's Universities:

• University Consortium of ALMA-Taiwan (UCAT)

Relation to other Projects:

• Submillimeter Array (SMA)

• Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI)

• Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA)