The ALMA challenge: Modeling high-resolution observations of young stars

The large Atacama millimeter array (ALMA) is a new (sub-)millimeter interferometer currently under construction in Chile. Operations are planned to begin within the next year and this will present the astronomical community with a vast improvement in spatial and spectral resolution as well as sensitivity with respect to currently available interferometers. The increased level of detail that will be revealed by ALMA of the various stages of star formation is however going to be a challenge because new and more accurate models and analysis tools are needed in order to interpret the data. In this talk I will discuss this issue in the perspective of illustrative examples from SMA observations and models of circumstellar disks. These include the distribution of water vapor in the comet forming zone of protoplanetary disks and kinematical studies of disk formation.