Maximizing Science in the Era of LSST: A Community-Based Study of Needed US Capabilities

Abstract

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be a discovery machine for the astronomy and physics communities, revealing astrophysical phenomena from the Solar System to the outer reaches of the observable Universe. While many discoveries will be made using LSST data alone, taking full scientific advantage of LSST will require ground-based optical-infrared (OIR) supporting capabilities, e.g., observing time on telescopes, instrumentation, computing resources, and other infrastructure. This community-based study identifies, from a science-driven perspective, capabilities that are needed to maximize LSST science. Expanding on the initial steps taken in the 2015 OIR System Report, the study takes a detailed, quantitative look at the capabilities needed to accomplish six representative LSST-enabled science programs that connect closely with scientific priorities from the 2010 decadal surveys. The study prioritizes the resources needed to accomplish the science programs and highlights ways that existing, planned, and future resources could be positioned to accomplish the science goals.

174 pages; one chapter of this report was previously published as arXiv:1607.04302

Cited by in corpus (7)

• SDSS-V: Pioneering Panoptic Spectroscopy
• The Detailed Science Case for the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer, 2019 edition
• Next Generation LSST Science
• Report on LSST Next-generation Instrumentation Workshop, April 11, 12 2019
• Single-object Imaging and Spectroscopy to Enhance Dark Energy Science from LSST
• Dynamical Masses for a Complete Census of Local Dwarf Galaxies
• Considerations for a new low-/moderate-resolution optical facility spectrograph at the VLT Coudé focus