ProposalsCalls for Proposals are issued for general and target of opportunity (TOO) CARMA time. Proposals requesting Director's discretionary time may be submitted at any time.The CARMA Time Allocation Committee (TAC) meets shortly after each proposal call to rank the proposals. The TAC includes six reviewers from within CARMA and two external members. Proposals are judged on scientific merit and technical feasibility. Approximately 30% of CARMA observing time is allocated to PIs not from the CARMA institutions. Calls for proposals will be advertised on the CARMA website and sent to the carma-announce mailing list. To subscribe to that list, send your email address to Nikolaus Volgenau, CARMA's Assistant Director of Operations (volgenau@mmarray.org). The current call for proposals is here. CARMA collaborators are not required in order to submit a proposal. However, if you would like help finding a collaborator, you may request one when you prepare your proposal. Proposal preparationA CARMA proposal consists of a cover sheet and a free-form scientific and technical justification. The cover sheet contains source and observing setup information, an abstract, and the status of the PI's prior CARMA observations. The justification may be up to two pages (12 pt) of text, and must be no more than three pages including figures and references. Additional pages will not be forwarded to the TAC.All proposals are to be submitted electronically, using the CARMA proposal submission system The system allows proposers to save entries between sessions. Plain text and LaTeX/TeX are accepted for the justification; encapsulated postscipt (eps) format is required for figures. The final PDF proposal is created by the system, and should be reviewed prior to submission. For help with submitting propsals and the proposal system, please email proposal-help@astro.uiuc.edu. Large proposals may be submitted through the regular system, with the same page limit. Although the proposal may describe a continuing program, it may only request time in the current semester, and must clearly state what can be achieved with the current request. If a multi-institutional proposal is longer than 40 hours, it may state (in the special instructions section) how the proposers suggest the time be split between the institutional/visitor allocations. To aid you in the preparation of your proposal, we strongly encourage you to review the instrument description. This document will be updated regularly. If you require any additional help in understanding CARMA instrument capabilities, you should email Dr. Nikolaus Volgenau (volgenau@mmarray.org). Requests for Director's discretionary timeRequests for Director's discretionary time may be submitted at any time to the email address ddt_request @ mmarray.org. Requests should provide a compelling scientific case and state clearly why observations are warrented sooner than the normal twice-yearly proposal cycle will allow. |