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Published January 2022 | Accepted Version + Published
Journal Article Open

Optimization of the Observing Cadence for the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time: A Pioneering Process of Community-focused Experimental Design

Abstract

Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a ground-based astronomical facility under construction, a joint project of the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, designed to conduct a multipurpose 10 yr optical survey of the Southern Hemisphere sky: the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Significant flexibility in survey strategy remains within the constraints imposed by the core science goals of probing dark energy and dark matter, cataloging the solar system, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. The survey's massive data throughput will be transformational for many other astrophysics domains and Rubin's data access policy sets the stage for a huge community of potential users. To ensure that the survey science potential is maximized while serving as broad a community as possible, Rubin Observatory has involved the scientific community at large in the process of setting and refining the details of the observing strategy. The motivation, history, and decision-making process of this strategy optimization are detailed in this paper, giving context to the science-driven proposals and recommendations for the survey strategy included in this Focus Issue.

Additional Information

© 2021. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Received 2021 July 27; revised 2021 November 6; accepted 2021 November 17; published 2021 December 22. The authors wish to thank the anonymous referee assigned during the peer-review process and the Rubin internal reviewers, including Dr. Rahul Biswas, who helped improve the quality of the paper. Papers in this Focus Issue are supported by the Preparing for Astrophysics with LSST Program, funded by the Heising–Simons Foundation through grant 2021-2975, and administered by Las Cumbres Observatory. This material is based on work supported in part by the National Science Foundation through Cooperative Agreement 1258333 managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), and the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515 with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Additional LSST funding comes from private donations, grants to universities, and in-kind support from LSSTC institutional members. The authors acknowledge the support of the LSST Corporation in securing and directing private funds toward activities that supported the community involvement with Rubin. The authors acknowledge the support of the Vera C. Rubin LSST SCs that provided a collaborative environment for Rubin-related research and exchange of knowledge and ideas. A.J.C. acknowledges support from NSF award AST1715122 and DOE award DE-SC-0011635. E.G. is supported by the US Department of Energy grant DE-SC0010008. J.S. acknowledges support from the Packard Foundation. M.E.S. was supported by UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) grant ST/V000691/1. M.L. acknowledges support from South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the National Research Foundation (NRF) toward this research. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. R.M. is supported by the US Department of Energy grant DE-SC0010118. S.J.S. was supported by UKRI STFC grants ST/S006109/1 and ST/N002520/1. T.A. acknowledges support from FONDECYT Regular 1190335, the Millennium Science Initiative ICN12_009 and the ANID BASAL project FB210003. W.N.B. thanks the V.M. Willaman Endowment at Penn State. This document was prepared using resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services. We used the following Python packages: numpy (Harris et al. 2020), maplotlib (Hunter 2007), seaborn (Waskom et al. 2017). Facility: Rubin - .

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Accepted Version - 2108.01683.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023