European ALMA operations: the interaction with and support to the users

摘要

The Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) is one of the largest and most complicated observatoriesrnever built. Constructing and operating an observatory at high altitude (5000m) in a cost effective and safe manner, withrnminimal effect on the environment creates interesting challenges. Since the array will have to adapt quickly to prevailingrnweather conditions, ALMA will be operated exclusively in service mode.rnBy the time of full science operations, the fundamental ALMA data product shall be calibrated, deconvolved data cubesrnand images, but raw data and data reduction software will be made available to users as well. User support is provided byrnthe ALMA Regional Centres (ARCs) located in Europe, North America and Japan. These ARCs constitute the interfacernbetween the user community and the ALMA observatory in Chile.rnFor European users the European ARC is being set up as a cluster of nodes located throughout Europe, with the mainrncentre at the ESO Headquarters in Garching. The main centre serves as the access portal and in synergy with therndistributed network of ARC nodes, the main aim of the ARC is to optimize the ALMA science output and to fully exploitrnthis unique and powerful facility.rnThe aim of this article is to introduce the process of proposing for observing time, subsequent execution of thernobservations, obtaining and processing of the data in the ALMA epoch. The complete end-to-end process of the ALMArndata flow from the proposal submission to the data delivery is described.