[mmaimcal] Large Millimeter Surveys Meeting

[Min Yun]

Hi Al,

A couple of interesting results relevant to ALMA came out at this
meeting I attended this week.  First of all, there are several 
large (10'x10') SCUBA and MAMBO surveys are being analyzed now,
and everyone is coming to the realization that confusion is a
real problem, especially if there are numerous fainter sources
at sub mJy level (which is a model and reality dependent).  
It appears this is an area only ALMA will be able
to address.  As you may already know, D. Hughes has an astroph
paper that highlights this problem using his LMT simulations.

Another interesting result is that the optical/IR statistics are
solidifying a little bit, and the latest account is that something like
65% of the SCUBA sources are too faint to be detected even at NIR.
An immediate consequence is that their redshift may only be 
obtained if we can detect the CO (or atomic FIR) transitions.
At the moment, the radio-submm spectral index technique is the
only method people can use to infer the redshift distribution,
but I presented a talk on using the whole radio to dust SED to
infer the redshifts.  What really perked up people's interest,
Peter Shaver in particular in the context of ALMA, is the 
redshift inference when only one spectral line is detected.
My personal feeling is that you can do this pretty easily and
securely using the SED, but we can also quickly predict and
confirm the redshift using another J transition.  I should write
up this SED method very quickly, and I will try to address this
single line detection case.

Speaking of Peter Shaver, he did not have any particular objection
to the ALMA posters I put up, but he mentioned that we should work
together on the new poster ESO is putting together for the IAU.
He pointed out "MMA" in the Arp220 SED plot in particular and said
we should update the figures used.  I told him that you had to put
together the poster for the VLA meeting quickly and that we are all in
favor of producing a more up-to-date poster using the ESO PR machine.

There were a few other interesting science results, and I can
tell you about them when you get out here next week.  Cheers!




					-- Min