[csp] Radio astronomy and VO - proposal for IVOA Interest Group

[Mark Allen]

Dear all,

This message is sent to everyone involved in the "radio astronomy and VO” discussions that followed on from the sessions and splinter meetings at the last IVOA interop. (Please let me know if somone is missing!)

With Bruno (ESA), Mark Lacy (NRAO) and Francois Bonnarel (CDS), we have made a draft charter for an IVOA Radio Astronomy Interest Group, and a description of the motivation.

I’d like to get this into shape so that it can be presented at the next IVOA Exec telecon on February 18, with the aim of having the Interest Group approved.

Can you please send any comments on the charter, and also provide additions of groups/projects to mention in the motivation. Also, improvements to the descriptions of the projects listed. It is probably the “motivation” part that will have the most influence. IVOA interest groups do not usually focus on a specific wavelength/frequency domains, but here I think we can argue that the Interest Group will be a very good mechanism to give the effort the right level of visibility and focus, and that it will help a lot to really make things happen.

It would be a great help to have comments before Feb 14, so that it can be included in the Exec meeting agenda.

best regards,
Mark



IVOA Radio Astronomy Interest Group

Charter:

The group shall define requirements for the representation of radio astronomy data in the VO through:
•  development of use cases for data discovery, access and visualization.
•  identification of metadata concepts needed by radio astronomy data that are not currently supported by the VO

The group will provide a well identified point of contact for radio projects with IVOA, and actively encourage their use of VO standards and protocols.

The group will organize sessions focused on radio astronomy data at IVOA meetings 


Motivation:

Radio astronomy has several domain-specific requirements that need to be fulfilled if radio astronomy data is to be well-served by the VO. While there has been recent work on multi-dimensional data relevant for both radio and other wavebands, there remain areas in which new concepts/standards, or extensions of existing ones are needed for radio astronomy, particularly for (but not restricted to) data products based on correlated visibilities from radio interferometers.

The formation of this group is particularly timely, given the ramp-up of radio astronomy projects that will generate large volumes of both raw data and processed images. The groups and projects that are expected to be involved include:

ALMA
NRAO’s Science Ready Data Products Initiative (VLA data and user-defined ALMA data products)
ASKAP
The Canadian Initiative for Radio Astronomy Data Analysis (CIRADA), which will produce high level data from the VLA Sky Survey, the CHIME telescope and surveys with ASKAP.
JIVE
LOFAR
SKA
The ESCAPE project, also supporting connection to VO for LOFAR, JIVE, and ultimately SKA  (also brings results of ASTERICS and AENEAS projects)
MeerKAT, and the South African Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA).

These, and future projects, are planning their science platforms and ways users will find/access/use the data. By providing the necessary standards, the IVOA can help to ensure that VO protocols can be integrated into these efforts from an early stage, thus enabling interoperability and data discovery both within radio astronomy and between radio astronomy and other wavelengths.


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