Call for Key Project Proposals, Semester 2013a

CARMA seeks Key Projects that are of sufficient scope and potential scientific impact to justify a significant investment of CARMA resources. Key Projects that complement ALMA or lead to follow-up programs with ALMA are encouraged. A Key Project can request any combination of standard antenna configurations for up to 1000 hours of observing time spread over 1 to 5 semesters. However, Key Projects that seek primarily wideband/continuum observations should consider delaying a proposal submission until after CARMA's new 8 GHz correlator is commissioned (Fall 2013). In addition to the science and technical justifications, the proposal must outline a plan for the management, production, and distribution of science-quality data products. CARMA anticipates running 1-3 Key Projects concurrently.

Key Projects are intended to be ambitious and high-impact programs that would be difficult to schedule through the general proposal call. The proposal can request any combination of standard antenna configurations or receiver bands between about 250 and 1000 hours, although there is no strict limitation on the number of hours that can be requested. The time can be requested to be carried out in one semester, or can be spread out over as many as 5 semesters subject to availability of observing time. The observing time over all semesters will be allocated at once pending satisfactory progress over the course of the project.

In exchange for a significant investment of observing time, the proposal team is responsible for contributing to CARMA operations and providing regular feedback to the CARMA partnership on the data quality. At minimum, the team is expected to become regular observers at CARMA and participate in the weekly observer telecons to discuss array issues. Travel support to CARMA may be possible pending available funding. The contributions of the project team toward array operations will be a factor in judging the proposals. In addition, the team is responsible for producing science-quality data products that can be distributed to the community. The first data delivery must be within 12 months after the first data are obtained, and every 6 months thereafter. The raw data will have a proprietary period of 6 months before it is available to the public through the CARMA data archive.

Key Projects can be submitted through the CARMA Proposal System by clicking the "Key Project" field. The restrictions on font size and margin size as well a latex template for the proposal text can be found at the same website. The proposal must contain the following:

1. Cover Sheet
   The cover sheet can be filled out on the CARMA Proposal System. For Key Projects only, it is not required to enter all sources, however, a table of sources will then be required as described below.
2. Proposal text (5 pages maximum)
   The proposal text must contain the following information:
   1. Scientific Justification and anticipated scientific impact of the proposed observations
   2. Technical justification, including the timeline for the proposed observations.
   3. Management. This section should provide a plan for the overall management of the project. This should include (i) a description of the data products and data release plans, (ii) key benchmarks covering the duration of the project against which progress may be gauged, and (iii) how the project team will contribute to CARMA operations and provide regular feedback on data quality.
3. Figures, Table, and References (3 pages maximum)
   If the complete source list is not entered on the cover sheet, then a table must be included that contains the complete source list. For each source, the table should indicate the coordinates, observed frequencies, velocities, and time per configuration. The total time for the project per configuration per semester must be clearly indicated.

Once a Key Project is approved, a status report must be submitted the CARMA Director every semester. The status reports must include a summary of the work completed to date, a comparison of the progress against the benchmarks described in the original proposal, and the work anticipated to be completed over the next semester.