Rapid Turnaround Call for Semester 25A

This is a call for rapid turnaround proposals. For regular calls for proposals, please see the facility home page.

Semester Information

Semester start of observing	2025-02-02 00:00 UT
Semester end of observing	2025-08-02 00:00 UT

The East Asian Observatory invites JCMT observing proposals requesting Rapid Turnaround (RT) time for Heterodyne instruments. This call is open to Principal Investigators (PIs) from Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, China, or from universities in the UK and Ireland that contribute to JCMT funding, or from the Expanding Partner Program regions (Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Brazil, and Argentina). All prospective PIs should review the JCMT eligibility requirements page prior to the preparation and submission of a proposal.

This special RT call for proposals requests observations of targets visible in April, and it particularly welcomes proposals targeting R.A. ranges with gaps in the 25A Principal Investigator (PI) queue. These gaps, caused by the uncertain operational status of SCUBA-2, currently exist between 8 and 15 hours R.A. Future RT calls may be issued for subsequent months, depending on the operational status of SCUBA-2.

All RT proposals submitted shall be peer-reviewed by the proposal creator (or designated co-author) of other proposals also submitted during the same submission cycle. The proposal peer review deadlines shall normally be two weeks after the close of the RT proposal submission deadlines.

By submitting a proposal, all proposing teams are committing themselves to providing ratings and brief written assessments of several other proposals submitted for this Call by the corresponding deadline. Any proposing team that fails to provide a full set of reviews for their assigned proposals by the corresponding review deadline shall have their own proposal removed from the review process. All such proposals shall be regarded as abandoned by the Observatory.

The MSBs for all approved RT projects should be created as soon as possible after their corresponding RT review period has completed.

Available Instruments

Heterodyne
- HARP
- The ʻŪʻū (230 GHz) receiver of the Nāmakanui instrument
- The ʻĀweoweo (345 GHz) receiver of the Nāmakanui instrument, available on a “shared risk” basis (see below).
The heterodyne backend, ACSIS, provides great flexibility in bandwidth and resolution. Various modes of observing are available for all associated heterodyne receivers.

Content of Proposal

Proposal authors are expected to provide separately both a Scientific and a Technical Justification for their proposed observations. These justifications should be substantiated by results from the JCMT integration time calculators to show that the proposed observations will reach the necessary noise limits for the proposed science goals. The calculators are integrated into the proposal submission system, and should be used to save the calculation(s) for their inclusion in the proposal.

Calibrations

Overheads for pointing, focusing, and calibrations should not be added to the time request. These activities will be accounted for separately. Calibration observations (e.g. focus, pointing, flux calibrators) and other unavoidable overheads (e.g. receiver tuning) are not charged to science projects and instead are charged to an Observatory accounting code. There is therefore no need for applicants to provide calibration overhead estimates in their proposals. The Observatory will perform regular and appropriate calibration observations to ensure that all science data obtained are sensibly calibrated.

Spectroscopically, this involves observations of one of the JCMT spectral line standards at one of about ten different line frequencies. If the target observing frequency is one of these, then the proposers are in luck. In any case, the calibration allows the proposers to assess the performance of the instrument. Such an observation will be performed at least once per program unless a previous calibration is still appropriate, and more often if circumstances change or if more than a couple of hours pass.

If a proposal demands more unusual or more frequent calibrations then this needs to be clearly stated in the proposal and the time for these calibrations requested explicitly. For queries about what the default calibrations might be, or what extra overheads are generated by a project’s calibration requirements, please consult JCMT staff.

Previous Proposals

The proposers should provide information on any previous successful (or otherwise) JCMT proposals, including any papers published as a result or the status of the project. The success of previous projects can be taken into account when awarding time, so it is in the proposers’ interests to provide full information on this. A section is included within the proposal submission system for this information.

Data Available from the Archive and Large Programs

All proposers are expected to check that there are no preexisting public data that meet the proposal’s science needs, or conflicting large programs, before submitting a proposal. A clash tool is available to aid in this, which can be used to search for potential “clashes” between the proposed objects and available data sets. It also provides a link to an archive search for each target position.

It is the proposers’ responsibility to ensure that sufficient explanation is included as to why any matching data does not meet the project’s needs — e.g. because it does not reach sufficient depth, or because is not at the right frequency, or because the observations were not of sufficient quality.

Flexible Scheduling

The overall philosophy of observing at JCMT is to match observing programs to the weather — see the Flexible Observing Guidelines page for more information. JCMT observations are conducted remotely on behalf of the proposers, in accordance with EAO flexible observing guidelines.

Shared Risk Observing (ʻĀweoweo)

The Observatory offers this opportunity with the strong caveat that this observing mode is still under development and/or commissioning. Scientific results cannot be guaranteed for sensitivity, calibration and/or reliability without further work between the project observers and Observatory staff. The Observatory will make best efforts to assist scientists with the observing request, data acquisition and reduction, and result analysis. Time will not be returned to the project should the needed sensitivity or other parameters not be met. Proposals requesting ʻĀweoweo should include a backup plan using HARP in case their project is affected by commissioning downtime.

Further Questions

For any remaining further questions, please use the “Contact us” link at the bottom of any page of the proposal submission system.