News and updates on tools for Cycle 13

With the successful start of Cycle 13, ALMA users will  be able to benefit from the following features recently implemented or updated in various ALMA tools and interfaces. Below we provide a brief overview with links to more detailed documentation:

Web-OT for DDT proposals

The ALMA Observatory allocates up to 5% of observing time per Cycle to Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT) proposals. These are submitted outside the standard proposal review process and are approved at the discretion of the ALMA Director.

• From the beginning of Cycle 13, DDT proposals are to be submitted via the web-based ALMA Observing Tool of the corresponding cycle. More information about DDT proposals can be found on the dedicated DDT page on the Science portal.

Updates to SnooPI Phase 2

Phase 2 information for approved programs are now shown to PIs through the Snooping Project Interface (SnooPI) after the Scheduling Blocks (SBs) have been created.

• SnooPI provides field and spectral information for every science target in each SB (e.g., target coordinates and radial velocities, spectral window frequencies, and correlator setups). Additionally, spatial and spectral visualizers to facilitate displaying this information are also available in SnooPI.
• These capabilities are similar to what was previously provided through the Phase 2 Observing Tool (OT), which is no longer provided to PIs. More detailed information can be found in the SnooPI User Manual.

What's new in the ALMA Pipeline for Cycle 13

Highlights of what's new in the 2026 ALMA Pipeline release (version 2026.2.0.27, running on CASA 6.7.4 with Python 3.12) for Cycle 13 include the following, with focus on performance, reliability and clarity in anticipation of the larger data volumes of the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU):

• hif_findroi: a new fast region-of-interest stage. This new imaging stage identifies likely source regions ahead of continuum/line imaging using a fast algorithm, and has been integrated into the ALMA imaging recipes. See IF imaging heuristics.

• Imaging moves to an LSRK-frame MS ahead of continuum/line separation. hif_mstransform now produces the measurement sets used for imaging in the LSRK frame, and hif_uvcontsub / hif_makeimlist / hif_makeimages were updated to consume the new frame and data types. See IF imaging heuristics.

• Continuum finding task updated with a round of robustness and parameter-passing fixes (uvrangepropagation, empty-baseline crash guards, y-axis limits) — see IF imaging heuristics.

• QA-message aggregation rolled out across most SD stages so that repeated warnings for the same metric/score collapse into a single accordion entry in the weblog, matching the IF weblog style — see SD weblog/QA.

• Low-SNR bandpass/gain heuristics extended to hif_lowgainflag and hifa_wvrgcalflag, reusing the combine='spw' + interp='linearPD' low-SNR machinery introduced for PL2025 — see IF calibration heuristics.

• Several QA-score thresholds were re-tuned (percent-flagged, newly-flagged, check-source fit, RepBW mom8fc) based on an analysis of “slow lane” false positives, aiming to route more good data through the ALMA FastLane — see IF weblog/QA.

• Single-dish imaging switches from pseudoI to true Stokes I, simplifying the weight-handling pipeline — see SD heuristics.

• Documentation restructuring: CLI docstrings extracted from the User Guide, a new getting-started guide, and a live dependency specification — see Documentation.

For additional information, see the new Pipeline documentation, which has moved to a new online format, replacing the previous PDF User's Guide and Reference Manual.

What's new in the ALMA Science Archive

The ALMA Science Archive (ASA) has received a substantial feature upgrade, with some features having been worked on for over a decade:

• Line search: search on detected lines is available. Search parameters include molecule names, transitions, redshifts, vlsr, and line intensities. A new Line tab shows detected lines for any search including sorting, subfiltering and downloading the corresponding FITS files. Moment 0 previews of lines are available in the preview-pop and in the new Line tab. Caveats: users need to understand that the line information by construction is incomplete and can be incorrect. Please pay careful attention to the warning pop-up that is displayed as soon as users interact with the line information.

• Histograms: For each numerical field and column, histograms show the value distribution of the full holdings as well as the distribution of the values currently shown in the result table.

• HiPS backgrounds: Users can now hover over the slider in the sky view, go to the bottom right corner and select among over 1000 of registered HiPS backgrounds or add a URL pointing to their own.

• Solar system objects: a search for solar-system objects will be available in December, allowing users to search by name, or even ephemeris. This service makes use of Solar System Object Image Search (SSOIS) of CADC. 

• Request Handler hierarchy The Request Handler interface now shows the full data-hierarchy in a modern, and intelligently scrollable way. 

• Request Handler text search Users now can search the result list of products with substrings, unix pattern or regular expressions.

• Request Handler views the Request Handler interface allows users to select a compact list view as well as a preview-only view in addition to the default presentation

• Cut outs Users can select on the query interface and the Request Handler to download a cut-out instead of the full FITS file. The search parameters for position and frequency are used to determine the cut-out bounds. 

For additional details, see the Science Archive Manual.