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Call for Proposal of VERA -2020A-


Observing proposals for the VERA are invited for the observing period from January 15th 2020 to July 15th 2020. Deadline for proposal submission is

November 15th, 2019, 08:00 UT.


Available Observing Mode

In this observing period, following observing modes are available. Please refer to the VERA status reports for more detail about each observing mode. New recording rates, 2048Mbps(single beam) and 4096Mbps(2 beams) are opened from 2018B.

Dual-beam mode : available for K-band and Q-band
Frequency band : K-band, Q-band and C-band (C-band is tentatively opened)
Recording mode : 1024Mbps, 2048Mbps(1ch) and 4096Mbps(2ch)
Filtering mode [bandwidth of a channel, channels in beam-A and beam-B, (mode name)]
     For 1024Mbps recording; 
       128MHz 1+1 (VERA1), 128MHz 2+0 (VERA1S), 16 MHz 1+15 (VERA7), 16MHz 2+14 (VERA7Q), 
       16 MHz 8+8 (VERA10), 16 MHz 16+0 (VERA7C) and 32 MHz 8+0 (VERA4S)
     For 2048Mbps recording; 512MHz 1+0 (2Gbpsx1ch)
     For 4096Mbps recording; 512MHz 1+1 (2Gbpsx2ch)
Array : VERA (K, Q and C) or VERA+NRO45m (K and Q)
      NRO45m has NO dual-beam mode, then only a single beam 
      observation is available. At NRO45m, the data are recorded with 
      a rate of 2048Mbps and reformatted into 1024Mbps data if it is necessary 
      in the correlation.
      Available telescope time of NRO45m is up to 72hrs per ONE YEAR. This available 
      time is shared between the common uses of VERA and EAVN.
Correlation

The Mizusawa software correlator at NAOJ will be used for correlation. The correlated data will be distributed to PI in the FITS format via internet download within 6 - 8 weeks after the observation.

Source list of VERA catalog

A list of VERA target sources is defined as the target list. Among the sources in the list, ~150 sources will be observed systematically in ~3 years as porject sources to measure trigonometric parallax and proper motions. These objects are not protected for the open use, and you can propose to observe any sources in this source list. Sources observed by VERA are summarized as follows;
Q-band VLBI
K-band VLBI
C-band VLBI
K-band Single-Dish


Preparation and Submission of Proposals

Proposals must be received by 08:00 UTC on November 15th, 2019. We only accept PDF file for proposal submission. Submission by regular/express mail or FAX is NOT acceptable.

Preparation for your proposal

(1) Cover-sheets ## modified from 2018B ###

Download the Latex template of cover-sheets (cover20A.tex) and the style file (VERAprop20A.sty). Fill in the blanks in English or Japanese as instructed in the comments of the template file and a note for the application cover sheets. If you specify paper size for printing, use only a size of A4. Run Latex and make a PDF file. In order to identify your file, please rename this PDF file as "PIname_# of your proposal_cov.pdf." For example, when the PI name is Mizusawa, H., file is named as "HMizu_1_cov.pdf".

(2) Scientific Justification
Prepare a file of the scientific justification within 2 pages in English or Japanese. One more additional page with diagrams may be included. The total, including cover-sheets, should NOT exceed 5 pages. You should NOT use the font size smaller than 10 point. Create a single PDF file (paper size of A4) incorporating your scientific justification and a diagram page. Please rename this PDF file as "PIname_# of your proposal_scj.pdf."

Submission of your proposals

We recommend submission through the WEB from HERE.
If you have any problem in the web submission, submit your PDF files (cover sheets and the scientific justification) as e-mail attachment files to
vera-submit @ nao.ac.jp
with subject as "PIname_# of your proposal."

After submission

You will receive a reply e-mail which confirms the contents of the submitted files within one or two working days. If you do NOT receive it, please contact to vera-prop @ nao.ac.jp.

Data Rights and Archiving

The authors named on a proposal will have exclusive access to the data obtained for that proposal for 18 months after the correlation. This policy is applied to each observation, even if the proposal comprises multi epoch observations. After this exclusive period, the data will be publicly accessible.

Note for the astrometric observations

Although the call for proposal invites proposals for the observing period during a half year, you can submit the astrometric observations which request multiepoch observations over a half year and till one year. Once these astrometric proposals are approved, it is not necessary to submit them again at the next call for proposal after a half year.

After the huge earthquake on 11 March 2011, the motion of Mizusawa station is still highly unstable and cannot be simply approximated by linear motion. Therefore, those who want to propose astrometric observations with VERA should note that astrometric performance could be degraded due to inaccuracy of Mizusawa station's position.
(However,it should be noted that VERA can measure distances around 10 kpc from the Sun with about 10 % accuracies from recent observations.)

Note for the correlation of C-band data

A software correlation is available for the C-band observation to achieve about 1 kHz fequency resolution, but the total output bandwidth is restricted because it increases the size of output data.
This high-resolution software correlation is restricted to C-band observation only.

Note for the combined array with the NRO 45-m and/or NICT 34-m telescopes

The observable period for the NRO 45-m telescope is from December to April in the next season. Please see
https://www.nro.nao.ac.jp/~nro45mrt/html/prop/index.html#brief
for more information.
NRO 45m is available in K- and Q-band observations. Whether NRO 45m can joined in the proposed observation or not is judged by Time Allocating Committee of VERA and NRO based on a scientific merit of observing proposal and availability of observing time. It is noted that NRO 45m is also available in the common use of EAVN.

NICT 34-m telescope can not particepate in VLBI observation because of a big accident. We sincerely appreciate great and long contributions of NICT 34m to VLBI colleagues.

ToO observations

An expected Target of Opportunity proposals should be submitted to regular CfP of VERA. Also, unexpected or urgent ToO can be submitted Director's time at any time. All ToO proposals must include specific triggering criteria to initiate an observation. The ToO is active one year from it is approved. The proposals to Director's time must be submitted by PDF files using e-mail to vera-submit @ nao.ac.jp.

Additional Information

The VERA status reports
A note for the application cover sheets

Source lists observed by VERA
     Q-band VLBI
     K-band VLBI
     C-band VLBI
     K-band Single-Dish
VERA Cumulative lists
     Q bands Cumulative List of Observed Sources
     K bands Cumulative List of Observed Sources
     C-band Cumulative List of Observed Sources
VERA 22 GHz Fringe Survey List (Petrov et al. 2006)
Reference sources detected with VERA (collected from various observations)
Sources that were NOT detected with VERA in the 22GHz Fringe Survey

proposal cover sheet, latex style file, sample for cover sheet

Contact e-mail address

If you have any question about the call for proposals of VERA, please contact with
vera-prop @ nao.ac.jp



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