Notes in the Application Form

Steps for submitting proposals

1. Fill out the application form (only ASCII characters) and upload your Scientific Justification PDF file here.

2. Filled items are checked. Preview the application PDF file created by the TAO ProMS and submit your proposal.

3. Confirmation of receipt of your proposal is displayed. You will receive a confirmation email.

General notes

• The subsections with (*) will be hidden from reviewers. For other subsections, please follows the Dual Anonymous (DA) writing style described in Dual Anonymous (DA) writing style.

• Choose whether to use the tex style. Regardless of whether you select 'yes' or 'no', LaTeX special characters do not work in fields without (tex). If you are not familiar with LaTeX, please select the radio button 'no'. A blank line causes a LaTeX compilation error when the LaTeX special characters mode is 'yes'.

Instructions for fields

1. Title of Proposal (tex)

• Enter your title of the proposal here.

• It should fit on one line when printed to PDF. Changing the standard font size of the title (by using a TeX command; e.g., \normalsize) should in principle be avoided unless especially needed.

2. Principal Investigator(*)

• Provide contact details for the PI. The observatory may contact the PI if there are any questions regarding the proposal or observations. PI should either be a Japanese citizen or belongs to a Japanese institute.

3. Scientific Category

• Please select the appropriate one out of the following 21 categories.

• This is used to combine similar proposals into the same category group. Please note, however, that the category specified by an applicant may be changed in the reviewing process according to its contents.

• Each program proposal will usually be reviewed by several referees (anonymous) who are experts in the relevant category.

• Categories:

  1. Solar System

  2. Extrasolar Planets

  3. Star Formation and Young Disk

  4. ISM

  5. Stars and Brown Dwarfs

  6. Stellar Envelope and Activity

  7. Compact Objects and SNe

  8. Milky Way, which includes the Galactic center researches

  9. Galactic Archaeology

  10. Local Group

  11. Nearby Galaxies

  12. IGM and Abs. Line Systems, which includes studies with QSO as a light source

  13. Circumgalactic Medium

  14. Cosmology

  15. Gravitational Lenses

  16. Clusters and Proto-Clusters, which includes a search for large-scale structures at high redshifts

  17. Galaxy Properties and Environment, which includes properties of galaxies in clusters/proto-clusters

  18. High-z Galaxies (LAEs, LBGs)

  19. High-z Galaxies (others)

  20. AGN and QSO Activity, which includes QSO-associated absorption lines and QSO host galaxies

  21. Miscellaneous

4. Abstract (tex)

• Provide a clear and concise description of your proposed observations and their scientific importance within 11 lines when printed to PDF with the normal font size, approximately 200 words.

• The abstract of all the accepted TAO proposals will be open to the public after the time of the data release (i.e., when the proprietary period has expired).

5. Co-Investigators(*)

• List the first and last names and affiliations, and email addresses of co-investigators.

• Only individuals listed here will have access to observed data sets. Please avoid using the name of a team or group as a Co-I. Please fill in a complete first name as well.

• Non-Japanese Co-Is belonging to non-Japanese institutes are limited to up to 2 persons per proposal. The roles of such Co-Is should be explicitly described in "11. Team Expertise".

• Please obtain the consent of all co-investigators for his/her being included in this list, since e-mail notification will be sent to them just after the deadline for application.

• You can append the "CoI" field as many as you like (In case the number of these co-investigators is large, the names of some members may not appear on the formatted cover page, however, our database certainly stores all the records of co-investigators listed on the webform).

• Please answer the question, 'How many students do you have among CoI?'. This is just for educational statistics and will not be used for the screening.

6. Student Program(*) (tex)

• If this proposal is for a Student Program, please select "yes" and provide the thesis title.

• Only a student PI can propose a Student Program.

7. Intensive Programs (not appear in the TAO form)

• No intensive programs for TAO.

8. List of Applicant's Related Publications(*) (tex)

• List publications (with full citation) related to the proposal within the last 5 years.

9. Condition of Closely-Related Past and Scheduled Observations(*) (tex)

• No need to fill in this field in S24X semester.

• If your proposal is a continuation of (or inextricably related to) the previously accepted proposals, describe how the relevant past observations were carried out by giving the Open Use proposal ID, Title, Weather/Observational condition, and Achievement rate [in %] for the planned outcome.

• The proposals described here must be included also in the following "10. Post-Observational Status and Publications".

• The reason why you request observational time in this semester (in spite of the past experience of TAO observations on a similar/the same theme) has to be briefly described at the end of the "Scientific Justification" (e.g., bad weather/condition, telescope/instrument downtime, expansion/improvement of the data, observing targets in a different season).

• Please also list your scheduled observations, that are closely related to the proposal. In this case, input "scheduled" for "Observation condition" and "0" for "Achievement".

10. Post-Observation Status and Publications(*) (tex)

• No need to fill in this field in S24X semester.

• Report the status or outcome of your main TAO observations carried out in the past.

• All observations relevant to this proposal (e.g., those enumerated in 1-9) must be included here. Similarly, all observations in the past 3 years with which the applicant was involved as PI must be reported.

• Give the date, the Open Use proposal ID (e.g., S01B-999), the PI's name, the status of data reduction/analysis, and related publications.

11. Team Expertise(*) (tex)

• Please describe expertise related to the proposed observations, especially echelle spectroscopy and mid-infrared observations (else?).

• If applicants need support from TAO in the proposed observations, please describe it.

• For non-Japanese Co-Is belonging to non-Japanese institutes, if any, explicitly describe their roles for this program.

12. Observing Run

• List the instruments, the requested and minimum acceptable number of nights, preferred and acceptable dates (e.g., "Apr/01-May/31"), lunar phase (Bright, Gray, or Dark), and Observing Modes. If more than three lines are necessary, use “13. Schedule Requirements”.

• Dark time is defined as being within 3 nights of the New Moon, Bright time is within 3 nights of the Full Moon, and Gray time is the remaining part of the lunar cycle.

• Applicants who request Dark time for infrared observations should justify its necessity in their scientific justification.

• Preferred Dates and Acceptable Dates should be described in the following format.

  1. Month Date: “Mmm/dd” (no “Mmm”, “Mmm/d”, “Mmm/dd-dd” and “mmm/dd”)

  2. to, and, or: “-” “,” “;” (no “--”, “to” and “and”)

  3. anytime: “any” (lowercase letter)

  4. N/A: “N/A” (uppercase letter)

  5. no TeX notation

• e.g. "Jul/01-Aug/31", "Aug/01-Aug/10,Sep/10-Sep/20", "Mar/01-Mar/31;Jul/01-Jul/31" If you need more than 40 characters or have special requirements, use “13. Schedule Requirements”.

• Enter the minimum acceptable number of nights to achieve your science goals. You may leave this empty if you require your full request.

13. Scheduling Requirements (tex)

• Any other special scheduling requirements should be clearly explained here, especially when you request bright/gray nights while there are still unacceptable dates affected by the Moon.

• To applicants of bright/gray nights observations:

  • When one particular source or several sources whose coordinates are concentrated in a narrow region are planned to observe on bright or grey nights, observations may be severely affected by the Moon on some particular nights. In such cases, those inconvenient or unacceptable dates should be explicitly indicated here.

• Please answer whether this is a proposal for ToO observations, and this is a proposal for Time Critical Observations.

14. List of Targets

• List all the targets intended for observations. Fill in the fields or upload a tab-separated values file.

• Please use Equinox J2000.0 unless otherwise specified in the comments.

• Specify the coordinate in the format of hhmmss.ss +/-ddmmss.s for RA and Dec. Note that there is no delimiter between hours/degrees, minutes, and seconds at all.

• If you have more than 80 targets, please describe the total number of targets in the comment column.

• If you have comments on targets, please indicate them in the field for comments.

15. Observing Method and Technical Details (tex)

• Describe the observing method and technical details of your proposed observations.

• Please explicitly state the instrument configuration (filters, slit width, readout mode) and justify the requested time by describing the details of your proposed observations, with reference to the instrument sensitivities provided on the website.

• Please justify the minimum night requirements.

• Please provide sufficient information so that the feasibility of proposed observations can be confirmed, and so that support astronomers can prepare for observations.

16. Instrument Requirements (tex)

• Other specific or unusual instrument requirements should be explained here.

17. Backup Proposal in Poor Conditions (tex)

• Provide a short description of observations that will be carried out if conditions are not good enough for the main purpose (e.g., poor transparency).

• Please specify target names. Besides, please do not forget to give the data of targets also in the "List of Backup Targets" section in the application form, so that we may include them in our database system similarly to those of main targets.

• See notes for “14. List of Targets” for “17+. List of Backup Targets”. If you have more than 49 backup targets, please describe the total number of backup targets in the comment column.

18. Public TAO Telescope Data Archive (tex)

• No need to fill in this field in S24X semester.

• Check your targets in the TAO database (Public Data Archive) before your submission. If your targets have already been observed by TAO in the past, please describe why you need to observe them again.

19. Duplications with Other TAO Programs

• If this proposal has any duplication with TAO Project Programs, explain the need for additional observations. (for both Normal and Student proposals)

• If this proposal has any duplication with TAO Normal Program(s), add the proposal ID(s). (only for Student proposal).

How to Prepare the Scientific Justification

Dual Anonymous (DA) writing style

• Applicants should read the Dual Anonymous Guidelines before writing the Scientific Justification.

• The DA writing style:

  • Avoid mentioning names and affiliations of PI/Co-Is.

  • Avoid claiming ownership of the applicant's past work.

  • Cite references (publications, data, and software) in a neutral third-party manner.

  • For more details, please follow the Dual Anonymous Guidelines. More practical examples can be found in the DA Guidelines of ALMA.

Scientific Justification style

The PDF file of the Scientific Justification may, in principle, be freely prepared without any specific format; however, the following conditions should be fulfilled. Proposals violating any of these requirements may be disqualified without being reviewed.

• Language: Should be written in English.

• Header information: At the top of the first page, the title of the proposal should be clearly written.

• Font size: Use font no smaller than 10 points (even in the figure caption or in the reference).

• Figures: Color figures can be included. However, proposals will be sent to referees electronically, and the reproducibility of color figures may depend on the referees' environments.

• Margins: Keep sufficiently large margins (at least 15 mm) at each of the four sides, so that any missing could be avoided when printed out.

• Page limitation: Maximum 2 pages A4 or letter size paper for including figures, tables, and references.

• File size: The file size should not exceed 4MB.

• File name: The name of the file should end with ".pdf".