VLBI potential of the ALMA telescope in the millimetre

A. Baudry1 2

1University of Bordeaux, LAB, France
2European ALMA Project Office, ESO

Poster

VLBI is not currently supported in the present ALMA construction plan. However, several receiver bands of interest will be available to perform mm/submm VLBI observations with the high gain ALMA antennas (phased array or subarray). In the mm/submm domain where angular resolution is maximized, addition of the large ALMA collecting area would provide a definite sensitivity and mapping advantage. Details of compact components in bright AGN’s and highly redshifted sources could be revealed with good sensitivity - even though the brightest sources could remain unresolved with the longest terrestrial baselines. 
In addition, there are several  mm/submm cosmic masers of interest in evolved stars or galactic star-forming regions which could be mapped with baselines in the range 100-1000 km. 

Finally, on the basis of recent ideas discussed in the ALMA correlator team, we briefly comment on the ability of the ALMA correlator to support VLBI operation.