The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope:

1. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope: The power of wide-field imaging Michael Strauss, Princeton University

2. Large Synoptic Survey Telescope An effective aperture of 6.9 meters, and a camera with a 9.6 deg2field of view, gives an étendue of 320 m2 deg2. Relative étendue

3. Telescope will be on Cerro Pachón in Chilean AndesTelescope will be dedicated to the survey, and will operate for ten years.

4. Three-mirror design, with tertiary built into primary

5. The LSST optics

6. Camera will have 3.2 Gigapixels, each 0.2”. Six filters, ugrizy.

7. A very fast compact design

8. Photometric system similar to SDSS (with addition of y filter)

9. A dedicated 10-year survey • Main survey will cover 20,000 square degrees, with over 300 15-second exposures in each of r, i, z, and Y. • 5 depth after two exposures: 23.9 (u), 25.0 (g), 24.7 (r), 24.0 (i), 23.3 (z), 22.1 (y) • Depth at end of the survey: 26.2 (u), 27.4 (g), 27.6 (r), 26.9 (i), 26.1 (z), 24.8 (y) • Perhaps 10% of the time will be devoted to cadences designed to observe faint distant Kuiper Belt Objects, and to get good light curves for supernovae.

10. Extremely high-quality data • Median delivered image quality of 0.67” • Can cover all the available sky in a given filter in roughly 3 nights. • Probes of variability on timescales from 15 seconds to 10 years. • Stellar photometric calibration to 1% or better; stellar repeatability to 0.5%. • Astrometry to 10 mas per visit, allowing proper motions uncertainty of 0.2 mas/year, and parallax uncertainty of 1 mas over the course of the survey.

11. Simulations of LSST sky coverage in six bands; equatorial coordinates.

12. First light as early as the end of 2015 (subject to funding), with a one-year commissioning period. • Major construction proposal submitted to NSF in February 2007. There is a hope for substantial funds for the camera from DOE. • The project is currently being discussed by the US 2010 Decadal Survey. • Budget: $390 million in 2006 dollars (including 30% contingency), plus $45 million per year in operating costs.

13. The LSST construction proposal was submitted to NSF in February 2007. We’re waiting for the recommendation of the Decadal Survey.

14. Primary/Tertiary has been cast!

15. Who is involved? Brookhaven National Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia University, Cornell, Drexel University, Google Inc., Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, IN2P3 (Paris), Johns Hopkins University, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University, Las Cumbres Observatory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Princeton University, Purdue University, Research Corporation, Rutgers University, Space Telescope Science Institute, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, The Pennsylvania State University, The University of Arizona, University of California, Davis, University of California, Irvine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, Vanderbilt University, and the Chilean astronomical community.

16. A Series of Science Collaborations • Weak lensing (Bhuvnesh Jain and Dave Wittman) • Strong lensing (Phil Marshall) • Supernovae (Michael Wood-Vasey) • Large-scale structure/BAO (Hu Zhan) • AGN (Niel Brandt) • Galaxies (Harry Ferguson) • Galactic structure (Beth Willman) • Stellar populations (Abi Saha and Kevin Covey) • Variability and transients (Lucianne Walkowicz andJosh Bloom) • Solar system (Steve Chesley and Lynne Jones)

17. Final thoughts • LSST is the most ambitious (and longest timescale) of a whole series of planned wide-field imaging surveys. • The data will be made public immediately, especially important for transients. • The need for spectroscopic follow-up and support (especially calibration of photo-zs) is obvious; many opportunities for synergy with bigBOSS!