The German node of the ALMA Regional Center was established as one initiative of the Research Association for Interferometry in North Rhine-Westphalia ("NRW Forschungsverbund Astro-Interferometrie").

The ARC intends to provide user support for all levels of ALMA users and will serve as a basis for public outreach and a training site that offers specialized courses, schools, and workshops to advance the knowledge of radio-interferometric techniques and science.

In addition to the regular ARC tasks, the German ARC node will focus on several specific areas of expertise, which include:

  • The development of advanced data analysis tools
  • Maintainance and upgrade of the Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy (CDMS)
  • Data pipeline heuristics (calibration, data capture)
  • Polarization calibration and observation optimization
This website will serve as an information point for the scientific community interested in ALMA and will include news, outreach and education announcements as well as job vacancies at the German ARC node. For more background on the node, follow the link to the 'About the German ARC' section.
CASA

CASA tutorial

 The German ARC node hosted a CASA tutorial at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy from Monday Oct. 5th till Wednesday Oct. 7th.

More details can be found at the CASA workshop page
ARTIST
Within the framework of the ASTRONET programme, "Common Tools for Future Large Submillimeter Facilities", we have initiated a project, "Adaptable Radiative Transfer Innovations for Submillimeter Telescopes (ARTIST)", to develop a next generation model suite for comprehensive multi-dimensional radiative transfer calculations of the dust and line emission, as well as their polarization.
More information on the project as well as related job vacancies can be found at the ARTIST homepage.