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Register a new userThe Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts: Optimizing the Joint Science Return from LSST, Euclid and WFIRST
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The focus of this report is on the opportunities enabled by the combination of LSST, Euclid and WFIRST, the optical surveys that will be an essential part of the next decades astronomy. The sum of these surveys has the potential to be significantly greater than the contributions of the individual parts. As is detailed in this report, the combination of these surveys should give us multi-wavelength high-resolution images of galaxies and broadband data covering much of the stellar energy spectrum. These stellar and galactic data have the potential of yielding new insights into topics ranging from the formation history of the Milky Way to the mass of the neutrino. However, enabling the astronomy community to fully exploit this multi-instrument data set is a challenging technical task: for much of the science, we will need to combine the photometry across multiple wavelengths with varying spectral and spatial resolution. We identify some of the key science enabled by the combined surveys and the key technical challenges in achieving the synergies.
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According to Aristotle, a philosopher in Ancient Greece, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This observation was adopted to explain human perception by the Gestalt psychology school of thought in the twentieth century. Here, we claim that observing part of an object which was previously acquired as a whole, one could deal with both partial matching and shape completion in a holistic manner. More specifically, given the geometry of a full, articulated object in a given pose, as well as a partial scan of the same object in a different pose, we address the problem of matching the part to the whole while simultaneously reconstructing the new pose from its partial observation. Our approach is data-driven, and takes the form of a Siamese autoencoder without the requirement of a consistent vertex labeling at inference time; as such, it can be used on unorganized point clouds as well as on triangle meshes. We demonstrate the practical effectiveness of our model in the applications of single-view deformable shape completion and dense shape correspondence, both on synthetic and real-world geometric data, where we outperform prior work on these tasks by a large margin.
NASAs WFIRST mission will perform a wide-field, NIR survey of the Galactic Bulge to search for exoplanets via the microlensing techniques. As the mission is due to launch in the mid-2020s, around half-way through the LSST Main Survey, we have a unique opportunity to explore synergistic science from two landmark programs. LSST can survey the entire footprint of the WFIRST microlensing survey in a single Deep Drilling Field. Here we explore the great scientific potential of this proposal and recommend the most effective observing strategies.
This white paper is the result of the Tri-Agency Working Group (TAG) appointed to develop synergies between missions and is intended to clarify what LSST observations are needed in order to maximally enhance the combined science output of LSST and Euclid. To facilitate LSST planning we provide a range of possible LSST surveys with clear metrics based on the improvement in the Dark Energy figure of merit (FOM). To provide a quantifiable metric we present five survey options using only between 0.3 and 3.8% of the LSST 10 year survey. We also provide information so that the LSST DDF cadence can possibly be matched to those of emph{Euclid} in common deep fields, SXDS, COSMOS, CDFS, and a proposed new LSST deep field (near the Akari Deep Field South). Co-coordination of observations from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and Euclid will lead to a significant number of synergies. The combination of optical multi-band imaging from LSST with high resolution optical and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy from emph{Euclid} will not only improve constraints on Dark Energy, but provide a wealth of science on the Milky Way, local group, local large scale structure, and even on first galaxies during the epoch of reionization. A detailed paper has been published on the Dark Energy science case (Rhodes et al.) by a joint LSST/Euclid working group as well as a white paper describing LSST/Euclid/WFIRST synergies (Jain et al.), and we will briefly describe other science cases here. A companion white paper argues the general science case for an extension of the LSST footprint to the north at airmass < 1.8, and we support the white papers for southern extensions of the LSST survey.
Euclid and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) are poised to dramatically change the astronomy landscape early in the next decade. The combination of high cadence, deep, wide-field optical photometry from LSST with high resolution, wide-field optical photometry and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy from Euclid will be powerful for addressing a wide range of astrophysical questions. We explore Euclid/LSST synergy, ignoring the political issues associated with data access to focus on the scientific, technical, and financial benefits of coordination. We focus primarily on dark energy cosmology, but also discuss galaxy evolution, transient objects, solar system science, and galaxy cluster studies. We concentrate on synergies that require coordination in cadence or survey overlap, or would benefit from pixel-level co-processing that is beyond the scope of what is currently planned, rather than scientific programs that could be accomplished only at the catalog level without coordination in data processing or survey strategies. We provide two quantitative examples of scientific synergies: the decrease in photo-z errors (benefitting many science cases) when high resolution Euclid data are used for LSST photo-z determination, and the resulting increase in weak lensing signal-to-noise ratio from smaller photo-z errors. We briefly discuss other areas of coordination, including high performance computing resources and calibration data. Finally, we address concerns about the loss of independence and potential cross-checks between the two missions and potential consequences of not collaborating.
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is designed to provide an unprecedented optical imaging dataset that will support investigations of our Solar System, Galaxy and Universe, across half the sky and over ten years of repeated observation. However, exactly how the LSST observations will be taken (the observing strategy or cadence) is not yet finalized. In this dynamically-evolving community white paper, we explore how the detailed performance of the anticipated science investigations is expected to depend on small changes to the LSST observing strategy. Using realistic simulations of the LSST schedule and observation properties, we design and compute diagnostic metrics and Figures of Merit that provide quantitative evaluations of different observing strategies, analyzing their impact on a wide range of proposed science projects. This is work in progress: we are using this white paper to communicate to each other the relative merits of the observing strategy choices that could be made, in an effort to maximize the scientific value of the survey. The investigation of some science cases leads to suggestions for new strategies that could be simulated and potentially adopted. Notably, we find motivation for exploring departures from a spatially uniform annual tiling of the sky: focusing instead on different parts of the survey area in different years in a rolling cadence is likely to have significant benefits for a number of time domain and moving object astronomy projects. The communal assembly of a suite of quantified and homogeneously coded metrics is the vital first step towards an automated, systematic, science-based assessment of any given cadence simulation, that will enable the scheduling of the LSST to be as well-informed as possible.
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