Speaker: Dr. Peter Nugent, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Date/Time: April 11, 2025 / 12 noon CDT
Location: NCSA 1040
Zoom: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/82318062756?pwd=M3g1MFF6cytsOWFEbmU0UW1XWVoxQT09
Title: The La Silla Schmidt Southern Survey
Abstract: The La Silla Schmidt Southern Survey (LS4) is a 5-year public, wide-field, optical survey using an upgraded 20 square degree QUEST Camera on the ESO Schmidt Telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. We are using LBNL fully-depleted CCDs to maximize the sensitivity in the optical up to 1 micron. This survey, which will commence in just a few months, will complement the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) being conducted at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in two ways. First, it will provide a higher cadence than the LSST over several thousand square degrees of sky each night, allowing a more accurate characterization of brighter and faster evolving transients to 21st magnitude. Second, it will open up a new phase-space for discovery when coupled with the LSST by probing the sky between 12--16th magnitude -- a region where the Rubin Observatory saturates. In addition, a Target of Opportunity program will be able to trigger on Multi-Messenger Astronomy events with localization uncertainties up to several hundred sq. deg., in multiple colors, very quickly. This project has direct relevance to several cosmology and fundamental physics efforts including: peculiar velocity measurements, and hence fundamental constraints on general relativity, with supernova as standardized candles; gravitational wave standard sirens as probes of the expansion of the Universe and gravity; and measurements of the Hubble constant through Type Ia and II-P supernovae. It also represents a very challenging computational framework to deliver on the science both in real-time and for multi-observatory data analysis. I will provide an overview of the project and its science goals with a view towards a few novel experiments which LS4 can enable.