Observing the Sun with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA): Fast-Scan Single-Dish Mapping

0481190 - ASÚ 2018 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
White, S.M. - Iwai, N. - Phillips, N. - Hills, R.E. - Hirota, A. - Yagoubov, P. - Siringo, G. - Shimojo, M. - Bastian, T.S. - Hales, A.S. - Sawada, T. - Asayama, S. - Sugimoto, M. - Marson, R. - Kawasaki, W. - Muller, E. - Nakazato, T. - Sugimoto, K. - Brajsa, R. - Skokić, Ivica - Bárta, Miroslav - Kim, S. - Remijan, A. - de Gregorio, I. - Corder, S. - Hudson, H. S. - Loukitcheva, M. - Chen, B. - de Pontieu, B. - Fleishmann, G. D. - Gary, D. E. - Kobelski, A. - Wedemeyer, S. - Yan, Y.
Observing the Sun with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA): Fast-Scan Single-Dish Mapping.
Solar Physics. Roč. 292, č. 7 (2017), 88/1-88/28. ISSN 0038-0938. E-ISSN 1573-093X
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT(CZ) LM2015067
Institutional support: RVO:67985815
Keywords : millimeter wavelengths * solar atmosphere * radiometric standard
OECD category: Astronomy (including astrophysics,space science)
Impact factor: 2.580, year: 2017

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope has commenced science observations of the Sun starting in late 2016. Since the Sun is much larger than the field of view of individual ALMA dishes, the ALMA interferometer is unable to measure the background level of solar emission when observing the solar disk. The absolute temperature scale is a critical measurement for much of ALMA solar science, including the understanding of energy transfer through the solar atmosphere, the properties of prominences, and the study of shock heating in the chromosphere. In order to provide an absolute temperature scale, ALMA solar observing will take advantage of the remarkable fast-scanning capabilities of the ALMA 12 m dishes to make single-dish maps of the full Sun. This article reports on the results of an extensive commissioning effort to optimize the mapping procedure, and it describes the nature of the resulting data.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0276791