THE PROMISES AND CHALLENGES OF THE ALMA WIDEBAND SENSITIVITY UPGRADE

24 - 28 JUNE 2024

ESO GARCHING

 

ALMA is embarking on its most ambitious upgrade since its conception: the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU).

This upgrade constitutes the top priority of the ALMA 2030 roadmap. It consists of an increase of the instantaneous spectral bandwidth by as much as a factor of four, while retaining full spectral resolution over the entire bandwidth, thus resulting in increases of the spectral scan speed up to a factor of 50 for the highest spectral resolution. In addition, an upgrade of the full signal chain of ALMA – from the receivers and digitizers, all the way through to the correlated data – will result in increases in sensitivity for all observations. However, this upgrade also brings some technical challenges related to the increase of the bandwidth needed all the way from the receivers to digitizers, digital signal processing and a 2nd generation correlator. ALMA Band 2, the flagship ALMA upgrade project being led by ESO, will be the first receiver to exploit this new, wide bandwidth.

The aim of this workshop is to widely present the upgrade and engage the community by showcasing the science that will be enabled in the upcoming years, during which some changes on scientific operations are expected due to the extent of the upgrade, deployment, and commissioning activities. At the same time, we will also solicit input from the ALMA community that will be used to inform priorities during the commissioning phase.


In-person attendance is strongly encouraged to enhance interaction between technical experts and scientists, discussion and community input. Remote participation will be enabled.

E-mail: alma-wsu-2024@eso.org

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