Review Presentation

New window of solar physics: Solar observations with ALMA

Author(s): Masumi Shimojo (NAOJ), and ALMA solar development team

Presenter: Masumi Shimojo (NAOJ)

Solar observations with mm/sub-mm waves have been carried out since 1960s, because there is a great potential to provide information on lower chromosphere and accelerated electrons. Nevertheless, mm/sub-mm waves have mostly been an unknown landscape for solar research yet, because it is very hard to obtain images with high spatial resolution. So, it is hoped that solar mm/sub-mm data obtained with ALMA give us new window of solar physics.

The Joint ALMA Office (JAO) offered solar observations with Band 3 (100 GHz) and Band 6 (239 GHz) since Cycle 4, and will release first solar scientific verification data on 18 January 2017. Although solar SV data were obtained with only 30 antennas that are included with 9 7m-antennas, the solar images synthesized from them demonstrate the power of ALMA solar observations. In this talk, we will report the current status of solar observations with ALMA, and show the marvelous solar images and the predicted scientific achievements.