Instrumental setup and data reduction ALMA setup. ALMA Band 7 observations of HD142527 were carried out in the night of June 2 2012. The precipitable water vapor in the atmosphere was stable between 1.4 and 1.8 mm, with clear sky conditions. The ALMA correlator was configured in the Frequency Division Mode (FDM) to provide 468.750 MHz bandwidth in four different spectral windows at 122.07 kHz resolution (0.1 km/s) per channel. Each spectral window was positioned in order to target the CO(3-2) transition at 345.7959 GHz, HCO+ as well as CS(7-6) and HCN(4-3). The measured system temperatures ranged from 207 to 285 K in the different spectral windows. The number of 12 m antennas available at the time of the observation was 19, although two antennas reported very large system temperatures (DA41 and DV12) and were flagged during data reduction. Excluding calibration overheads, a total time on source of 52 minutes was spent yielding an RMS of 15 mJy in 0.1 km s −1 channels. The primary flux calibrator was Titan, which provided a mean transferred flux of 14.2 Jy for 3c279, the bandpass calibrator, and 0.55 Jy for J1604-446, the phase calibrator. Amplitude calibration used the CASA Butler-JPL-Horizons 2010 model for Titan, which gives an estimated systematic flux uncertainty of ⇠10%. All the line data were processed with continuum subtraction in the visibility domain. Image synthesis. Image synthesis was performed using two different techniques, depending on the application. For a traditional way to present the visibility dataset we use Cotton-Schwab CLEAN in the CASA package. This technique represents the consensus in image synthesis. We use Briggs weighting with robustness parameter of zero. For deconvolved models we use a non-parametric least-squares modeling technique 31 with a regularizing entropy term (i.e. as in the family of maximum entropy methods, MEM here and elsewhere). MEM model images are restored by convolving with the clean beam and by adding the residuals calculated using the difmap package 32. For the residuals we use weights comparable to our choice in CASA, a mixture of natural and uniform weights. A detailed example of this MEM algorithm is shown in the HCO + channel maps, Fig. S4. 1 Registration of ALMA images. A ⇠0.1 arcsec astrometric uncertainty could affect the ALMA data. However, we checked the astrometry by confirming that the centroid of the Keplerian velocity field (seen in the RGB image for CO(3-2) in Fig. 1) lies indeed at the po

We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations from the 2014 Long Baseline Campaign in dust continuum and spectral line emission from the HL Tau region. The continuum images at wavelengths of 2.9, 1.3, and 0.87 mm have unprecedented angular resolutions of 0″. 075 (10 AU) to 0″. 025 (3.5 AU), revealing an astonishing level of detail in the circumstellar disk surrounding the young solar analog HL Tau, with a pattern of bright and dark rings observed at all wavelengths. By fitting ellipses to the most distinct rings, we measure precise values for the disk inclination (46 .72 0 .05 ± • •) and position angle (138 .02 0 .07).

Context. The Orion Kleinmann-Low nebula (Orion-KL) is a complex region of star formation. Whereas its proximity allows studies on a scale of a few hundred AU, spectral confusion makes it difficult to identify molecules with low abundances. Aims. We studied an important oxygenated molecule, HCOOCH 3 , to characterize the physical conditions, temperature, and density of the different molecular source components. Methyl formate presents strong close rotational transitions covering a wide range of energy, and its emission in Orion-KL is not contaminated by the emission of N-bearing molecules. This study will help in the future 1) to constrain chemical models for the formation of methyl formate in gas phase or on grain mantles and 2) to search for more complex or prebiotic molecules. Methods. We used high-resolution observations from the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer to reduce spectral confusion and to better isolate the molecular emission regions. We used twelve data sets with a spatial resolution down to 1.8 × 0.8 . Continuum emission was subtracted by selecting apparently line-free channels. Results. We identify 28 methyl formate emission peaks throughout the 50 field of observations. The two strongest peaks, named MF1 and MF2, are in the Compact Ridge and in the southwest of the Hot Core, respectively. From a comparison with single-dish observations, we estimate that we miss less than 15% of the flux and that spectral confusion is still prevailing as half of the expected transitions are blended over the region. Assuming that the transitions are thermalized, we derive the temperature at the five main emission peaks. At the MF1 position in the Compact Ridge we find a temperature of 80 K in a 1.8 × 0.8 beam size and 120 K on a larger scale (3.6 × 2.2 ), suggesting an external source of heating, whereas the temperature is about 130 K at the MF2 position on both scales. Transitions of methyl formate in its first torsionally excited state are detected as well, and the good agreement of the positions on the rotational diagrams between the ground state and the v t = 1 transitions suggests a similar temperature. The LSR velocity of the gas is between 7.5 and 8.0 km s −1 depending on the positions and column density peaks vary from 1.6 × 10 16 to 1.6 × 10 17 cm −2 . A second velocity component is observed around 9−10 km s −1 in a north-south structure stretching from the Compact Ridge up to the BN object, and this component is warmer at the MF1 peak. The two other C 2 H 4 O 2 isomers are not detected, and the derived upper limit for the column density is ≤3 × 10 14 cm −2 for glycolaldehyde and ≤2 × 10 15 cm −2 for acetic acid. From the 223 GHz continuum map, we identify several dust clumps with associated gas masses in the range 0.8 to 5.8 M . Assuming that the methyl formate is spatially distributed as the dust is, we find relative abundances of methyl formate in the range ≤0.1 × 10 −8 to 5.2 × 10 −8 . We suggest a relation between the methyl formate distribution and shocks as traced by 2.12 μm H 2 emission.

Abstract-The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an international radio telescope under construction in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. ALMA is situated on a dry site at 5000 m elevation, allowing excellent atmospheric transmission over the instrument wavelength range of 0.3 to 10 mm. ALMA will consist of two arrays of high-precision antennas. One, of up to 64 12-m diameter antennas, is reconfigurable in multiple patterns ranging in size from 150 meters up to ∼15 km. A second array is comprised of a set of four 12-m and twelve 7-m antennas operating in one of two closely packed configurations ∼50 m in diameter. The instrument will provide both interferometric and total-power astronomical information on atomic, molecular and ionized gas and dust in the solar system, our Galaxy, and the nearby to high-redshift universe. In this paper we outline the scientific drivers, technical challenges and planned progress of ALMA.

We present a detailed analysis describing the utility of the formaldehyde (H 2 CO) molecule in the derivation of the kinetic temperature and spatial density within molecular clouds. Measurements of 13 transitions from both the ortho and para species of H2CO have been made toward a sample of 11 active star formation regions. These H2CO transitions range in frequency from 211 to 365 GHz and in upper-state energy from 21 to 241 K. This range in excitation has allowed us to analyze H2CO sensitivity to both cool ( TK ;5 50 K) and warm ( TK > 50 K) molecular material.Using a spherical large velocity gradient (LVG) model to solve for the excitation of H 2 CO, we analyze the sensitivity of several ortho-and para-H2CO transition intensity ratios to the kinetic temperature and spatial density within molecular clouds. Through this analysis we derive several "rules of thumb" which should be followed when measurements of a particular intensity ratio are used to calculate T Korn( H2) in a molecular cloud. We find that for T K ;5 150 K and over ranges in H2CO column density typical for most molecular clouds, several H2CO transition intensity ratios are excellent monitors of TK and n(H2). Since the transitions whose relative intensities are sensitive to kinetic temperature can be measured using the same receiving system (and can in some cases be measured within the same spectrum), calibration uncertainties are minimized. We also present a detailed analysis of the uncertainties encountered in our modeling procedure, including the potential importance of infrared excitation.Using our measured H2CO radiation temperatures, we have constrained LVG model solutions for the kinetic temperature, spatial density, and H2CO species column density in each of the sources in our sample. Our derived spatial densities are comparable to those estimated using other molecular tracers. In all of the regions in our sample, though, we measure kinetic temperatures greater than 50 K, significantly higher than previous estimates for many of these sources. Previous underestimation of T K is due to the use of tracers which are sensitive only to cool ( TK ;5 50 K) gas. In particular, temperatures of 100 Kor more occur both toward the cool young binary object IRAS 16293-2422 and toward the "protostellar condensations" FIR 4/FIR 5 in NGC 2024.Using our ortho-and para-H2CO measurements we have calculated the N( ortho-H2CO) / N(para-H2CO) ratio in several of the sources in our sample. Our measurements indicate that N( ortho-H 2 CO) / N(para-H2CO) < 3 for most of our sources. When combined with the relatively high kinetic temperature in these objects, this N( ortho-H2CO) / N(para-H2CO) ratio suggests that dust grains might play an active role in H2CO chemistry.