Towards new frontiers through the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU)

In the coming years ALMA will be developing its most ambitious upgrade since its conception: the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU). This consists of an increase of the instantaneous spectral bandwidth by as much as a factor of four, while retaining full spectral resolution over the entire bandwidth, thus resulting in increases of the spectral scan speed up to a factor of 50 for the highest spectral resolution. In addition, an upgrade of the full signal chain of ALMA – from the receivers and digitisers, all the way through to the correlated data – will result in increases in sensitivity for all observations. In this talk I will introduce ALMA WSU, review its status, and discuss its relevance for the field of Astrochemistry.