Issue affecting some proposals requiring the longest baseline configurations (C-8, C-9 and C-10) in Bands 7, 8, 9 or 10

An issue has been identified that affects Cycle 9 proposals containing Science Goals that require configurations C-8, C-9 or C-10 in Bands 7, 8, 9 or 10. Such proposals undergo a check on validation and/or submission to verify that a suitable in-band or band-to-band phase calibrator is available in the ALMA Calibrator Catalogue (see Section A.9.6 of the Proposer’s Guide). However, in some cases, proposals are wrongly being identified as having no suitable band-to-band calibrator which means that they trigger an OT validation error and cannot be submitted.

If your Cycle 9 proposal requires configurations C-8, C-9 or C-10 in Bands 7, 8, 9 or 10, it is highly recommended to try to validate it in the OT and submit it to the ALMA Archive as soon as possible to check whether your proposal will successfully validate. As always, you can re-submit multiple times up until the ALMA proposal deadline.

In case you receive the specific validation error “Band-to-band observing is required, but no calibrator appears to be available” and cannot submit your proposal, please contact the Proposal Submission Emergency Department on the ALMA Helpdesk as soon as possible before the Cycle 9 proposal submission deadline of 15:00 UT on Thursday, 21 April 2022 and attach your complete .aot file to the ticket.

Proposals (.aot files) affected by this specific issue that are received on the Helpdesk before the proposal deadline will be submitted to the ALMA Archive by ALMA staff and will be considered to be officially submitted. Only proposals affected by this specific issue may be submitted in this manner. ALMA staff will then perform the calibrator availability check for these proposals after the proposal deadline. However, PIs should be aware that some proposals may still be found to have no suitable band-to-band calibrator.