The LSST operations simulator

Delgado, Francisco; Saha, Abhijit; Chandrasekharan, Srinivasan; Cook, K. H.; Petry, C. E.; Ridgway, Stephen T.

doi:10.1117/12.2056898

Cited by 61 publications

(44 citation statements)

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“…For SDSS, PS1, SNLS, and DES, 54 each cadence library has been created from the actual survey observations, and therefore includes genuine fluctuations from weather and operational issues. For LSST, the cadence library is computed 55 from the baseline cadence published by LSST using the Operations Simulator (Delgado et al 2014), which uses historical weather data near Cerro Pachon to make realistic estimates of observational conditions and cadence. For WFIRST and SMT, we use the observation libraries based on Hounsell et al (2017) and Scalzo et al (2017), respectively.…”

Section: Simulation Of Transient Surveysmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Many Kilonovae Can Be Found in Past, Present, and Future Survey Data Sets?

Scolnic

Keßler

Brout

et al. 2017

ApJL

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The discovery of a kilonova (KN) associated with the Advanced LIGO (aLIGO)/Virgo event GW170817 opens up new avenues of multi-messenger astrophysics. Here, using realistic simulations, we provide estimates of the number of KNe that could be found in data from past, present, and future surveys without a gravitational-wave trigger. For the simulation, we construct a spectral time-series model based on the DES-GW multi-band light curve from the single known KN event, and we use an average of BNS rates from past studies of --10 Gpc yr 3 3 1 , consistent with the one event found so far. Examining past and current data sets from transient surveys, the number of KNe we expect to find for ASAS-SN, SDSS, PS1, SNLS, DES, and SMT is between 0 and 0.3. We predict the number of detections per future survey to be 8.3 from ATLAS, 10.6 from ZTF, 5.5/69 from LSST (the Deep Drilling/Wide Fast Deep), and 16.0 from WFIRST. The maximum redshift of KNe discovered for each survey is = z 0.8 for WFIRST, = z 0.25 for LSST, and = z 0.04 for ZTF and ATLAS. This maximum redshift for WFIRST is well beyond the sensitivity of aLIGO and some future GW missions. For the LSST survey, we also provide contamination estimates from Type Ia and core-collapse supernovae: after light curve and template-matching requirements, we estimate a background of just two events. More broadly, we stress that future transient surveys should consider how to optimize their search strategies to improve their detection efficiency and to consider similar analyses for GW follow-up programs.

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Section: Simulation Of Transient Surveysmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Many Kilonovae Can Be Found in Past, Present, and Future Survey Data Sets?

Scolnic

Keßler

Brout

et al. 2017

ApJL

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“…• Observing strategy (cadence) optimization can yield improvements in total openshutter time for the survey, but also can improve the utility of angular and temporal sampling functions and dithering patterns (Delgado et al 2014). It is, therefore, important to develop a scheduling algorithm that can efficiently address potential evolution of the LSST observing system and evolution of its science drivers.…”

Section: Lsst System Enhancements and New Algorithmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The scale of the required simulations range from approximations of the technical parameters that describe the LSST (OpSim; Delgado et al 2014), through single realizations of an image from an LSST sensor (DESC 2015) and large scale mock catalogs of asteroids (Jones et al 2016), to full simulations of representative volumes of LSST data (DESC 2015). Many of the required simulation tools are in development (e.g.…”

Section: Astrophysical Simulations and Astrophysical Systematicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Everything we’d like to do with LSST data, but we don’t know (yet) how

2016

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Abstract. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the next-generation optical imaging survey sited at Cerro Pachon in Chile, will provide an unprecedented database of astronomical measurements. The LSST design, with an 8.4m (6.7m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 sq. deg. field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera, will allow about 10,000 sq. deg. of sky to be covered twice per night, every three to four nights on average, with typical 5-sigma depth for point sources of r=24.5 (AB). With over 800 observations in ugrizy bands over a 10-year period, these data will enable a deep stack reaching r=27.5 (about 5 magnitudes deeper than SDSS) and faint time-domain astronomy. The measured properties of newly discovered and known astrometric and photometric transients will be publicly reported within 60 sec after observation. The vast database of about 30 trillion observations of 40 billion objects will be mined for the unexpected and used for precision experiments in astrophysics. In addition to a brief introduction to LSST, we discuss a number of astro-statistical challenges that need to be overcome to extract maximum information and science results from LSST dataset.

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“…The first is the LSST Operations Simulator (OpSim) (Delgado et al (2014)), which combines a realistic weather history and a high-fidelity telescope model with a scheduler driven by a set of proposals that attempt to parametrize a basic observing strategy (e.g., a proposal for the main survey footprint that specifies the main survey footprint, skybrightness and seeing limits, number of visits desired in each filter, and the time window between pairs of visits in each night). The output of OpSim is a simulated pointing history, complete with observing conditions and individual visit limiting magnitudes, that demonstrate how LSST might survey the sky.…”

Section: Lsst Survey Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Asteroid Discovery and Characterization with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

2015

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Abstract. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be a ground-based, optical, allsky, rapid cadence survey project with tremendous potential for discovering and characterizing asteroids.With LSST's large 6.5m diameter primary mirror, a wide 9.6 square degree field of view 3.2 Gigapixel camera, and rapid observational cadence, LSST will discover more than 5 million asteroids over its ten year survey lifetime. With a single visit limiting magnitude of 24.5 in r band, LSST will be able to detect asteroids in the Main Belt down to sub-kilometer sizes. The current strawman for the LSST survey strategy is to obtain two visits (each 'visit' being a pair of back-to-back 15s exposures) per field, separated by about 30 minutes, covering the entire visible sky every 3-4 days throughout the observing season, for ten years.The catalogs generated by LSST will increase the known number of small bodies in the Solar System by a factor of 10-100 times, among all populations. The median number of observations for Main Belt asteroids will be on the order of 200-300, with Near Earth Objects receiving a median of 90 observations. These observations will be spread among ugrizy bandpasses, providing photometric colors and allow sparse lightcurve inversion to determine rotation periods, spin axes, and shape information. These catalogs will be created using automated detection software, the LSST Moving Object Processing System (MOPS), that will take advantage of the carefully characterized LSST optical system, cosmetically clean camera, and recent improvements in difference imaging. Tests with the prototype MOPS software indicate that linking detections (and thus 'discovery') will be possible at LSST depths with our working model for the survey strategy, but evaluation of MOPS and improvements in the survey strategy will continue. All data products and software created by LSST will be publicly available.

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The LSST operations simulator

Cited by 61 publications

References 1 publication

How Many Kilonovae Can Be Found in Past, Present, and Future Survey Data Sets?

How Many Kilonovae Can Be Found in Past, Present, and Future Survey Data Sets?

Everything we’d like to do with LSST data, but we don’t know (yet) how

Asteroid Discovery and Characterization with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

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