Optimizing the U.S. Ground-Based Optical and Infrared Astronomy System (2015)

A
Request for White Papers

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine

August 27, 2014

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences
Board on Physics and Astronomy
Committee to on a Strategy Optimize the U.S. OIR System in the Era of the LSST

REQUEST FOR WHITE PAPERS

The National Research Council’s Committee on a Strategy to Optimize the U.S. Optical and Infrared (OIR) System in the Era of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is charged with identifying the principal federal and non-federal capabilities in the U.S. OIR System and making strategic recommendations to optimize the system for the best science return. The committee finds it vital to its deliberations to collect input from the astronomy community in the course of its work.

The committee has developed a list of questions about the OIR system and we invite any researcher or group in the community to answer any or all of these questions in a brief (1-2 pages) White Paper.

We are developing an input submission site to facilitate your responses. This site will go live soon. We will post an announcement that the submission site is live on the committee’s website (not through an AAS email). We ask for all input to be submitted by 9:00 a.m. EDT on Monday, October 6, 2014.

Understanding the community’s perspectives is crucial to the committee’s task and the resulting report to the National Science Foundation, so we thank you in advance for your generous assistance in this regard.

All submissions will be made publicly available through The National Academies’ Public Access Records Office per FACA Section 15 and will be posted on the committee’s public website, as well. Please direct all questions to the National Research Council (OIR_Study@nas.edu).

The committee’s questions to the community are as follows:

1. What O/IR capabilities are you using, are you planning to use, and will you need through the LSST era?
2. Do you have access to the O/IR capabilities you currently need to conduct your research, e.g. a proposal process, through collaborators, or via data archives? If not, what is missing?
3. Comment on the need for the U.S. community’s access to non‐federal O/IR facilities up to 30 meters in size.
4. What could be done, outside of increased funding, that would enable the U.S. astronomical community to realize the goals of the decadal surveys at OIR wavelengths?
5. What is the role that a national observatory should have in an effective ground-based OIR system?
6. What are the U.S. long-term data management, archiving, and mining needs in ground-based O/IR astronomy, including those for LSST?
7. Given the increasing complexity of astronomical instrumentation, where should new major instruments be built (e.g. universities, national labs, collaborations)? How much instrument duplication is desirable or sustainable across different facilities of similar aperture?
8. How can the community ensure that future generations of astronomers have relevant instrumentation, observing, and software skills for the frontier science of tomorrow?
9. Comment on any needed evolution in human astronomical infrastructure, that is, the efficiency of sustaining instrumentation, data, or software teams in centers of excellence relative to assembling the needed skill sets from across the community.
10. What types of scientific and observing coordination among the various NSF telescopes (including Gemini and LSST) and non‐federal facilities are the most important for making scientific progress in the next 10-15 years? How can such coordination best be facilitated?

WHITE PAPER SUBMISSIONS

The following white papers were submitted to the Committee on a Strategy to Optimize the U.S. Optical and Infrared System in the Era of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.:¹

Abate, A., J.A. Newman, and S.J. Schmidt. 2014. Spectroscopic needs for training of LSST photometric redshifts.

Allen, L., and D. Silva. 2014. KPNO in the next decade and beyond.

Andersson, B.-G., A. Adamson, K.S. Bjorkman, J.E. Chiar, D.P. Clemens, D.C. Hines, J.L. Hoffman, T.J. Jones, A. Lazarian, C. Packham, J.E. Vaillancourt, et al. 2014. The need for general-use polarimeters in the era of LSST.

Armandroff, T.E. 2014. Input from McDonald Observatory to the Committee on a Strategy to Optimize the U.S. OIR System in the Era of the LSST for Questions 3 and 10.

Armandroff, T.E., G. Hill, D. Jaffe, and P. MacQueen. 2014. Input from McDonald Observatory to the Committee on a Strategy to Optimize the U.S. OIR System in the Era of the LSST for Question 7.

Armstrong, J.T., M.J. Creech-Eakman, J.D. Monnier, S.T. Ridgway, T.A. ten Brummelaar, and G.T. van Belle. 2014. Supporting community access to optical/infrared interferometry.

Baranec, C., J.L. Tonry, J. Lu, and S. Wright. 2014. Mapping the dark matter distribution in the local universe with the asteroid terrestrial-impact last alert system (ATLAS) and the University of Hawai’i 2.2-m Robo-AO system.

Bernstein, R.A., G. Jacoby, P. McCarthy, et al. 2014. Instrumentation and technical excellence in astronomy in the LSST and ELT era.

Blanton, M., K.G. Stassun, and R. Walterbos. 2014.

Borne, K. 2014. Comments on Data Science Methods.

Chambers, K. 2015. Pan-STARRS and the future of optical/IR sky surveys in the Northern Hemisphere.

Cohen, J., and C. Martin. 2014. The crucial role of W.M. Keck Observatory in the U.S. astronomical system.

Dickinson, M.E., I. Dell’Antonio, A. Gonzalez, S. Kane, J. Lloyd, J. Lotz, L. Macri, K. Meech, S. Neff, D. Padgett, C. Pilachowski, et al. 2014. Planning for U.S. partnership in the Thirty Meter Telescope.

Drory, N., M. Shetrone, and N. Gaffney. 2014. Software and the US OIR System.

Elias, J.H. 2014. Developing future generations of instrument builders: An update.

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¹ National Academies, Community Input: A Strategy to Optimize the U.S. Optical and Infrared System in the Era of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), http://sites.nationalacademies.org/BPA/BPA_087934#input.

Freedman, W.L., E. Moses, C. Alcock, T. Armandroff, M. Colless, W. Couch, D. DePoy, R. Franzen, L. Hicke, B. Jannuzi, R. Kirshner, R. Kolb, et al. 2014. Community access to the GMT in the era of LSST.

Heathcote, S. 2014. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the LSST era.

Herbst, W., T. Balonek, J. Bary, R. Cadmus, J. Cannon, W. Cauley, D. Cohen, K. Flaherty, M. Hughes, E. Jensen, E. Kempton, et al. 2014. Open access facilities in the US OIR system: A plea from astronomers at primarily undergraduate institutions.

Kron, R.G., E. Berger, R. Blum, H.W. Chen, A. Cochran, J. Crane, G. Da Costa, J. Dalcanton, M. Donahue, J. Eisner, D. Fabricant, J.-J. Lee, et al. 2014. The role of GMT in the OIR system in the LSST era.

Liu, C.T., B. Willman, J. Pepper, M. Rutkowski, D. Norman, K. Cruz, J. Bochanski, H. Lee, J. Isler, J. Gizis, J.A. Smith, et al. 2014. Maximizing LSST’s scientific return: Ensuring participation from smaller institutions.

Loredo, T.J., J. Babu, K.D. Borne, E. Feigelson, P. Freeman, J. Hilbe, Z. Ivezic, C. Schafer, and A. Siemiginowska. 2014. Astronomical information sciences for O/IR synoptic survey astronomy.

Marscher, A.P., T. Bania, E. Blanton, T. Brainerd, K. Brecher, D. Clemens, C. Espaillat, J. Jackson, P. Muirhead, M. Opher, and A. West. 2014. White paper on the future of ground-based OIR astronomy in the US.

Matheson, T., S. Ridgway, K. Olsen, and A. Saha. 2014. Optical/Infra-red spectroscopy of transients and variables in the LSST era.

McConnachie, A.W., J. Bullock, P. Garnavich, P. Guhathakurta, G. Hasinger, M. Mateo, M. Strauss, and B. Tully. 2014. The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) status update.

Megeath, S.T. 2014. O/IR capabilities and the study of star formation in the nearest 2 kpc.

Monnier, J.D., J.T. Armstrong, M.J. Creech-Eakman, S.T. Ridgway, T.A. ten Brummelaar, and G.T. van Belle. 2014. Funding technology development and novel instrumentation today in order to enable breakthrough observing techniques tomorrow.

Murayama, H., R. Ellis, T. Heckman, M. Seiffert, and D. Spergel. 2014. Prime focus spectrograph on Subaru to follow up LSST targets.

Oey, S., P. Price, L. Hartmann, J.U. Monnier, and C.U. Miller. 2014. Enabling science: OIR system software tools.

Rich, R.M. 2014. Spectroscopy in the galactic bulge/bar and inner disk in the era of LSST.

Roederer, I.U. 2014.

Rudnick, G., A. Myers, C. Badenes, T. Beers, S. Brittain, J. Carlin, D. Cinabro, M. Cooper, A. Connolly, E. Ellingson, X. Fan, et al. 2014. The need for community access to highly multiplexed spectroscopy: DESI availability in the age of LSST.

Schmidt, S.J., J.A. Newman, and A. Abate. 2014. Spectroscopic needs for calibration of LSST photometric redshifts.

Strader, J.M., E.F. Brown, L. Chomiuk, E.D. Loh, and S.E. Zepf. 2014. A view of astronomy at universities in the LSST era.

Street, R.A., C. McCully, T.A. Lister, D.A. Howell, and J. Parrent. 2014. Time domain astronomy in the era of LSST.

Suntzeff, N.B. 2014.

Tuttle, S.E., H. Lee, C. Froning, and M. Montgomery. 2014. Builders instead of consumers: Training astronomers in instrumentation and observation.

Vestrand, W.T., and P.R. Wozniak. 2014. The follow-up crisis: Optimizing science in an opportunity-rich environment.

Walkowicz, L., A. Connolly, Z. Ivezic, M. Juric, V. Kalogera, C. Lintott, P. Marshall, and M. Strauss. 2014. Software training networks in the LSST era.

Walkowicz, L., A. Mahabal, M. Agüeros, A. Becker, H. Bond, B. Frye, J. Grindlay, V. Kalogera, S. Kanbur, K. Long, M. Moniez, et al. 2014. OIR time domain astronomy in the era of LSST.

Walter, F.M. 2014.

Walter, F.M., T. Armandroff, R. Bernstein, M. Bolte, W. Herbst, P. Lira, M. Margulis, S. Oey, N. Roe, R. Shelton, B. Willman, et al. 2014. AURA observatory council views on the national observatory.

Willman, B., K. Olsen, J. Bochanski, N. Brandt, A. Burgasser, W. Clarkson, M. Cooper, K. Covey, H. Ferguson, E. Gawiser, M. Geha, et al. 2014. Enabling a diverse user community to produce cutting-edge science with LSST.