The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives. (22nd May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Graham, Matthew J.; Kulkarni, S. R.; Bellm, Eric C.; Adams, Scott M.; Barbarino, Cristina; Blagorodnova, Nadejda; Bodewits, Dennis; Bolin, Bryce; Brady, Patrick R.; Cenko, S. Bradley; Chang 章展, Chan-Kao 誥; Coughlin, Michael W.; De, Kishalay; Eadie, Gwendolyn; Farnham, Tony L.; Feindt, Ulrich; Franckowiak, Anna; Fremling, Christoffer; Gezari, Suvi; Ghosh, Shaon; Goldstein, Daniel A.; Golkhou, V. Zach; Goobar, Ariel; Ho, Anna Y. Q.; Huppenkothen, Daniela; Ivezić, Željko; Jones, R. Lynne; Juric, Mario; Kaplan, David L.; Kasliwal, Mansi M.; Kelley, Michael S. P.; Kupfer, Thomas; Lee, Chien-De; Lin 林省, Hsing Wen 文; Lunnan, Ragnhild; Mahabal, Ashish A.; Miller, Adam A.; Ngeow, Chow-Choong; Nugent, Peter; Ofek, Eran O.; Prince, Thomas A.; Rauch, Ludwig; Roestel, Jan van; Schulze, Steve; Singer, Leo P.; Sollerman, Jesper; Taddia, Francesco; Yan, Lin; Ye 葉泉, Quan-Zhi 志; Yu 俞伯, Po-Chieh 傑; Barlow, Tom; Bauer, James; Beck, Ron; Belicki, Justin; Biswas, Rahul; Brinnel, Valery; Brooke, Tim; Bue, Brian; Bulla, Mattia; Burruss, Rick; Connolly, Andrew; Cromer, John; Cunningham, Virginia; Dekany, Richard; Delacroix, Alex; Desai, Vandana; Duev, Dmitry A.; Feeney, Michael; Flynn, David; Frederick, Sara; Gal-Yam, Avishay; Giomi, Matteo; Groom, Steven; Hacopians, Eugean; Hale, David; Helou, George; Henning, John; Hover, David; Hillenbrand, Lynne A.; Howell, Justin; Hung, Tiara; Imel, David; Ip 葉永, Wing-Huen 烜; Jackson, Edward; Kaspi, Shai; Kaye, Stephen; Kowalski, Marek; Kramer, Emily; Kuhn, Michael; Landry, Walter; Laher, Russ R.; Mao, Peter; Masci, Frank J.; Monkewitz, Serge; Murphy, Patrick; Nordin, Jakob; Patterson, Maria T.; Penprase, Bryan; Porter, Michael; Rebbapragada, Umaa; Reiley, Dan; Riddle, Reed; Rigault, Mickael; Rodriguez, Hector; Rusholme, Ben; Santen, Jakob van; Shupe, David L.; Smith, Roger M.; Soumagnac, Maayane T.; Stein, Robert; Surace, Jason; Szkody, Paula; Terek, Scott; Sistine, Angela Van; Velzen, Sjoert van; Vestrand, W. Thomas; Walters, Richard; Ward, Charlotte; Zhang, Chaoran; Zolkower, Jeffry;
• Is Part Of: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Volume 131:Number 1001(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-05-22
• Subjects: (stars:) supernovae: general -- surveys -- (galaxies:) quasars: general; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Astronomy; Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1088/1538-3873/ab006c
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0004-6280

Abstract

Abstract: The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a public–private enterprise, is a new time-domain survey employing a dedicated camera on the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope with a 47 deg 2 field of view and an 8 second readout time. It is well positioned in the development of time-domain astronomy, offering operations at 10% of the scale and style of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) with a single 1-m class survey telescope. The public surveys will cover the observable northern sky every three nights in g and r filters and the visible Galactic plane every night in g and r . Alerts generated by these surveys are sent in real time to brokers. A consortium of universities that provided funding ("partnership") are undertaking several boutique surveys. The combination of these surveys producing one million alerts per night allows for exploration of transient and variable astrophysical phenomena brighter than r ∼ 20.5 on timescales of minutes to years. We describe the primary science objectives driving ZTF, including the physics of supernovae and relativistic explosions, multi-messenger astrophysics, supernova cosmology, active galactic nuclei, and tidal disruption events, stellar variability, and solar system objects.