German ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) Node

The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) is a revolutionary interferometer for mm and submm astronomy in the Atacama desert in Northern Chile. It is operated by a global collaboration between Europe (ESO), North America (NRAO) and East Asia (NAOJ), in cooperation with Chile. The interface between ALMA and the user communities is provided by three ALMA Regional Centres (ARCs) in Europe, North America and East Asia.

The European ARC (EU ARC) is organized as a coordinated network with a central node at ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München and regional nodes located in Bologna(I), Bonn/Cologne(D), Grenoble(F), Leiden(NL), Manchester(GB), Ondrejov(CZ), and Onsala(S). The concept and the implementation of the EU ARC network has been described in an article in the ESO Messenger (Hatziminaoglou et al. 2015, Msngr. 162, 24).

The German ARC node is a collaboration of the universities of Bonn and Cologne. Its headquarters are located at the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie in Bonn. The German ARC node provides services to ALMA operations, the local astronomical community and the general public:

Newsletters and Announcements


German ALMA Community Day 2024

[22 February 2024]

The next Call for Proposals for observing time with ALMA (Cycle 11) will be issued in late March 2023. The deadline for proposals is expected to be on 25 April 2024, with observations starting in October 2024. New capabilities in Cycle 11 will include full polarization in Band 1, Band 1 observations on the 7-m Array and high-frequency observations even with the most extended configurations.

As a kick-off into the proposal preparation season, the German ARC node cordially invites its community to gather at the German ALMA Community Day in Bonn on 25 March 2024.

Workshop "The promises and challenges of the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade"

[10 January 2024]

The workshop The promise and challenges of the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade will take place at ESO, Garching, on 24-28 June 2024. This upgrade 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.

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. At the same time, we will also solicit input from the ALMA community that will be used to inform priorities during the commissioning phase.

Registration and abstract submission are now open! The deadline to submit an abstract for a contributed talk is 01 March 2024.

Announcement for early proposal planning

[20 December 2023]

The ALMA observatory has released information to support early proposal planning for Cycle 11, including new capabilities in Cycle 11, the available observing modes for Large Programs and the anticipated configuration schedule. Further details will be publihed in the Cycle 11 Call for Proposals.

Anticipated Key dates for Cycle 11:
  • 21 March 2024: ALMA Cycle 11 Call for Proposals
  • 25 April 2024: Proposal submission deadline
  • October 2024: Start of Cycle 11 observations, spanning 12 months