Director's Discretionary Time Proposals

Which proposals qualify for a DDT request

A small fraction of the available observing time at the NOEMA interferometer and the 30-meter telescope can be assigned to Director's Discretionary Time Proposals (DDT).

A DDT proposal must fulfill at least one of the following criteria:

• Proposals of Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) nature requiring the immediate observation of an unanticipated, short-lived astronomical event;
• Proposals that are urgent either addressing highly competitive scientific topics or asking for observations that will lead to break-through results or requesting follow-up observations of recent discoveries using ground or space facilities that require urgent complementary IRAM data.
• Proposals testing news ideas or including an element of risk, that can be tested with small amounts of observing time
   

How to submit a DDT Proposal

DDT proposals may be submitted any time through the new Proposal Management System (PMS). This tool replaces the previous e-mail submission, which will not be accepted anymore. Proposers will have to create a PMS account once to be able to login and prepare/submit their proposals. To do so, just click on the link above and follow the instructions on-screen. 

The submission procedure consists in filling in an on-line form with the details of the requested observations (source coordinates, receiver setups, array configuration, etc.), and to upload a single file in pdf format containing the scientific justification. A LATEX template is provided from the PMS submission page for your convenience. You may customize this file, or generate the pdf file with another software, but in any case proposers should respect that the proposal may contain up to two pages of text describing the scientific aims and the technical justification plus up to two pages of figures, tables, and references, and that the font size must be 11pt or larger. DDT proposals should include a clear justification why the program should be considered for DDT allocation and was not submitted for the regular proposal deadline. Please indicate on the proposal web form if the proposed DDT observations are related to a previous or an on-going IRAM program. If so, the corresponding proposal number should be indicated.

For a proposal to be complete, PMS requires that all authors validate their identity (e-mail and affiliation) and their participation to the proposal. The editor of the proposal will have to send invitations to all authors through PMS by clicking an invitation button. Authors will then receive an e-mail asking them to validate their contact information already entered in PMS by the proposal editor. This does not require the authors to create an account in PMS.

Proposal evaluation

DDT proposals will be evaluated in swift manner, in particular the ToO proposals. For other DDT proposals, please  provide a minimum of two weeks notice for the time requested.

Please note that within one month following the observations, the PI of an accepted DDT proposal should submit a feedback report to the IRAM Director (ddt@iram.fr).