| Submillimeter observations are a key for answering many of the big questions in modern-day astrophysics, such as how stars and planets form, how galaxies evolve, and how material cycles through stars and the interstellar medium. With the upcoming large submillimeter facili-ties ALMA and Herschel a new window will open to study these questions. Here we propose to develop a next generation model suite for comprehensive multi-dimensional radiative trans-fer calculations of the dust and line emission, as well as their polarization, to help interpret observations with these groundbreaking facilities. The tool will consist of three main components: (i) an innovative radiative transfer code using adaptive gridding that allows simulations of sources with arbitrary multi-dimensional (1D, 2D, 3D) and time-dependent structures, ensuring rapid convergence even for complex molecules, such as H2O, (ii) unique tools for modeling the polarization of the line and dust emission, in-formation that will come with standard ALMA observations, and (iii) a comprehensive interface connecting these packages. This will provide the community with a convenient tool to model fully self-consistently the chemical and physical structure of objects observed at submillimeter wavelengths - and thus help to maximize the scientific return of the new facilities. |
