Abstract

The main goal of the present project is to prepare a young Chilean scientist to serve as technical interface between the ALMA project and the national community of scientific users. For such effect the fellow Paulo Cortés participated during 2006 and 2007 in several aspects of the development of the Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) of the ALMA Project, the main interface to the scientific users. He specifically (a) studied the combination of interferometric and single dish observations, with Athol Kemball from National Center for Supercomputing Applications; (b) participated as tester in the ALMA-CASA off-line software, oriented to the users; and (c) participated of developing a software tool to convert from the ALMA-ASDM data model to a CASA table object. This activities took place mainly at the NRAO facilities in USA. Dr. Cortés strengthened the computational system infrastructure at Cerro Calán during the 2006–2007 period, and reorganized it with the goal of preparing it for possible ALMA requirements. He will now continue his work at the PUC within the context of the U. Chile – PUC – U. Concepción collaborational FONDAP project. Inserting himself as an important actor in the community, Dr. Cortes participated as editing board member of the KAWAX study “La necesidad en Chile de una infraestructura tecnologica colaborativa de apoyo a la investigacion Astronomica”. He further became familiarized with the time allocation processes for mm-wave telescopes by participating as executive secretary for the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX; Precursor of ALMA) Chilean Time Allocation Committee, and was recently named APEX project scientist To familiarize himself with the scientific drivers and observational capabilities of ALMA Dr. Cortés participated in several scientific and technical workshops during the project, and undertook the difficult problem of combining single-dish and interferometric observations with ALMA. Further, Dr. Cortés produced 2 scientific papers within the context of the project; (a) interferometric observations of polarized emission from star forming regions, whereas ALMA will be a premier instrument for this kind of work at resolutions that are not achievable today by any instrument; and (b) in collaboration with Dr. Gaspar Galaz, the first detection of 12CO(3-2) toward low surface brightness galaxies.