Subject: current draft LSST DRM

From: Jeremy Mould

Submitted: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 08:58:26 -0700

Message number: 173 (previous: 172, next: 174 up: Index)

Colleagues on the LSST SWG,
I've just read the current version of DRM.ps and I'm impressed with the way
it's developing as a detailed statement of what the community wants in an LSST.

I'll pick on just one of the unanswered questions raised in the document and 
put in my 2 cents worth on the subject of supernovae. My hunch is that the
competitive advantage of LSST in this subject lies in large number statistics.
One of our classic LSST promotional slides says, "scan mode will find 
thousands of SNe per year at z = 0.1 and deep mode will find thousands at
z = 1." Thus any small kink in a(z), where a is the expansion scale factor,
will be convincingly revealed, as the Universe transitions from matter dominated
expansion to dark energy dominated expansion. It will also be possible to 
interpret such kinks as progenitor evolution, and this will call for 
spectroscopic followup. I think we should be confident that the demand for
such followup can be met. It simply requires effective target of opportunity
programs on the system of large telescopes, and, if this is important, our
planning for the System -- with the leverage of TSIP -- will obtain what the
community wants. 

A corollary of what I'm saying is that notions from the SWG's Spring meeting
in Tucson that supernovae will be no longer so interesting in the LSST era, 
or will be supported by LSST without our lifting a finger, are copouts 
and not worthy of two of the 3 decadal surveys that raised our expectations 
of what LSST will do.

OK, back to my main point. I'd like to encourage all of you who have
written sections of this document to send in abstracts summarizing your
contribution, to the AAS in Atlanta. There won't be a special
session on LSST at Atlanta, but a dozen posters or talks will command collocation
at the meeting and the attention of the community. Although there may be
magic ways of getting LSST implementations funded, there is no substitute
for broad community support for major facility projects. A big presence
at Atlanta will maintain LSST firmly in community consciousness. At the NOAO
booth we'll be handing out copies of a nice production of DRM.ps to anyone
who stops by.

Thanks for your contribution to the SWG this year. It's good to see the
first milestone in sight.
Jeremy 


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