CaltechAUTHORS
Published August 3, 2021 | Version Submitted
Discussion Paper Open

The Impact of Observing Strategy on Reliable Classification of Standard Candle Stars: Detection of Amplitude, Period, and Phase Modulation (Blazhko Effect) of RR Lyrae Stars with LSST

Creators

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 multi-purpose 10-year 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 potential users' community. 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

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Submitted as the opening paper of the Astrophysical Journal Focus Issue on Rubin LSST cadence and survey strategy. The authors wish to thank the Rubin internal reviewers, including Dr. Rahul Biswas, who helped improving the quality of the paper. 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 Science Collaborations that provided a collaborative environment for Rubin related research and exchange of knowledge and ideas. AJC acknowledges support from NSF award AST1715122 and DOE award DE-SC-0011635. EG is supported by the US Department of Energy grant DE-SC0010008. JS acknowledges support from the Packard Foundation. MES was supported by UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Grant ST/V000691/1. ML acknowledges support from South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the National Research Foundation (NRF) towards this research. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. RM is supported by the US Department of Energy grant DE-SC0010118. SJS was supported by UKRI STFC grants ST/S006109/1 and ST/N002520/1. TA acknowledges support from FONDECYT Regular 1190335 and Millennium Science Initiative ICN12_009. WNB 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. Facility: Rubin Observatory. We used the following Python packages: • numpy (Harris et al. 2020) • maplotlib (Hunter 2007) • seaborn (Waskom et al. 2017)

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
112431
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20211214-190106933

Related works

Describes
http://arxiv.org/abs/2108.01683 (URL)

Funding

NSF
AST-1258333
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-AC02-76SF00515
Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Corporation
NSF
AST-1715122
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-SC0011635
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-SC0010008
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
ST/V000691/1
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
National Research Foundation (South Africa)
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-SC0010118
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
ST/S006109/1
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
ST/N002520/1
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT)
1190335
Millenium Science Initiative
ICN12_009
Pennsylvania State University
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-AC02-07CH11359

Dates

Created
2021-12-15
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-06-02
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