Great Surveys: Spectral and Temporal Frontiers

1. Great Surveys: Spectral and Temporal Frontiers Adam Aaardvark-Zulkarni, Department of Astronomy or Adam Zulkarni-Aardvark, Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology

2. Some Well known Adages • Science progresses through funerals (Max Planck?) • Given a telescope/instrument with entirely new capabilities even a sufficiently idiotic astronomer can make a sufficiently great discovery (Kulkarni) • Those who can think creatively do. Those who have have gone past that point (or never had it) do surveys (name with held by request)

3. In the previous century astronomers undertook surveys to …

4. Motivations • Catalog of the Sky • Palomar Sky Survey • Search for variables • Harvard Sky Patrol • Explore the Sky (New Bands) • Early Cambridge Surveys • UHURU (classical X-rays) • IRAS (long wavelength IR) • ROSAT All Sky Survey (soft X-rays)

5. Issues • Storage: Physical Medium • Glass plates (Palomar Sky Survey) • Journals (Hat Creek HI surveys) • Access: • Basic access (e.g. NVSS) • Reduced data (e.g. IRAS, ROSAT)

6. This Century

7. Digital Surveys • 2MASS • Defined the gold standard for imaging surveys • Sloan Digital Sky Survey • Defined the gold standard for a complex survey/experiment • Parkes Multibeam Survey • Found more pulsars than the entire world output since t=0

8. Experiments & Quests • CMB astronomy brought rigorous experimental planning to astronomy • Large number of experiments are now geared up to attack • Cosmography (Ia SN, WL, BAO) • Cosmology (EOR) • Large scale structure (Clusters, WL) • Quests: Extra-solar planets • Transit experiments, COROT, Kepler

9. Drivers • Technology • Semi-conductor industry (Moore’s law) • Optical Astronomy • Radio Astronomy • Detectors (e.g. IR, sub-mm) • Build the next instrument • To Acceptable Cost • To Aspiration

10. Capital cost: Software Running costs: hardware Data: inexpensive Analysis: very expensive The World has become Upside Down

11. Issues

12. Full Sky Surveys • This decade will see full sky surveys from radio through GeV • Basic Issue: • Basic Access • Cross-catalog Access • Sophisticated Queries • Falls squarely in the VO framework

13. Exponential Growth+Synergy=Accelerating Returns • Moore’s law: performance is exponential • Kurzweil claimed that the performance of electronics (over 100 years) was accelerating (decreasing e-fold timescale) • Broadly speaking: what happens when two exponentially technologies are applied to the same problem ? Law of accelerating returns

14. Exciting Possibilities • New avenues for discovery (data mining) • Possibilities for discoveries that lie at the interface of previously poorly connected subjects (e.g. LIGO and EM astronomy, UHECR and regular astronomy) • Holistic approach • Complete SEDs • High quality statistics • deeper insight including numerical astrophysics • Rare Objects

15. Are we ready? • Poor tools • No efficient tools to intelligently analyze multiple data bases • Community not well trained • Poor incentive for developing tools • Deep concerns about career paths for software astronomers

16. Followup: Shortage • Followup is the key for surveys (as opposed to self-contained experiments) • Spectroscopy is usually critical • Transient objects: need light curves • Radio: a major bottleneck (cf GRB astronomy)

17. Aspirations & Appetite

18. Projects: Soon and Proposed • Optical Imagers: Raptor, PanStarr, Palomar Transient Factory, SkyMapper, VST, One degree Imager,HyperSuprimeCam, Dark Energy Camera, PS4, LSST, JDEM • IR Imagers: UKIRT, VISTA, Subaru • Spectroscopic Surveys: SDSS, LAMOST, WFMOS • Radio: ATA, EVLA, LOFAR, EOR1, EOR2, …, LWA, ASKAP • Sub-millimeter: Scuba-2, SPT, WISE, LMT, CCAT

19. Reality Check • Aspirations far exceed fiscal reality • Astronomers must identify cost-savings • Data reduction pipelines • Standard Archiving • Eliminate multiple surveys for similar objectives

20. Transient Object Astronomy

21. Why is this field interesting? • Transients have traditionally played a major role in the history of astronomy • Algol, Cepheids, Supernovae • Explosion in GRB astronomy is a direct demonstration of accelerating returns • Phase space for discovery is extremely large (rare objects, fast events)

22. Transients: experimental planning is necessary • All surveys claim to provide value to other areas of astronomy • Mostly the claims are dubious • Will likely fail for transient object astronomy • Community focus has been on discovering events (cf LSST, PanStarrs). BUT • Payoff is really in filtering and followup • Long term value is in rates and statistics • Needs experiment planning

23. This Meeting

24. Critical Issues • Sociology • Reward Structure • Software • Structure of Surveys How do we make progress?

25. Balance between Surveys and PI science • Big difference between astronomy and physics • Cf Fermi-Dirac • Astronomy is the art of what is possible • We should sharply distinguish great questions (physics) and great quests (astronomy) • The balance is dangerously poor • Train to be a jaguar and eat up all the hedgehogs and outrun the fox

26. Now for something really useful

29. The Mother of All Surveys • All telescopes around the world to observe four regions of the sky for an entire year • The cadence, filter choices etc are designed to minimize operating costs • Resulting survey will serve all areas of astronomy (thanks to the diversity of the approaches)!