ALMA High-frequency Long Baseline Campaign in 2021: Highest Angular Resolution Submillimeter Wave Images for the Carbon-rich Star R Lep

Abstract

Abstract The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) was used in 2021 to image the carbon-rich evolved star R Lep in Bands 8–10 (397–908 GHz) with baselines up to 16 km. The goal was to validate the calibration, using band-to-band (B2B) phase referencing with a close phase calibrator J0504-1512, 1.°2 from R Lep in this case, and the imaging procedures required to obtain the maximum angular resolution achievable with ALMA. Images of the continuum emission and the hydrogen cyanide (HCN) maser line at 890.8 GHz, from the J = 10−9 transition between the (1110) and (0400) vibrationally excited states, achieved angular resolutions of 13, 6, and 5 mas in Bands 8–10, respectively. Self-calibration (self-cal) was used to produce ideal images to compare with the B2B phase referencing technique. The continuum emission was resolved in Bands 9 and 10, leaving too little flux for the self-cal of the longest baselines, so these comparisons are made at coarser resolution. Comparisons showed that B2B phase referencing provided phase corrections sufficient to recover 92%, 83%, and 77% of the ideal image continuum flux densities. The HCN maser was sufficiently compact to obtain self-cal solutions in Band 10 for all baselines (up to 16 km). In Band 10, B2B phase referencing as compared to the ideal images recovered 61% and 70% of the flux density for the HCN maser and continuum, respectively.