The Diverse Science Return from a Wide-Area Survey of the Galactic Plane [IMA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.03137


The overwhelming majority of objects visible to LSST lie within the Galactic Plane. Though many previous surveys have avoided this region for fear of stellar crowding, LSST’s spatial resolution combined with its state-of-the-art Difference Image Analysis mean that it can conduct a high cadence survey of most of the Galaxy for the first time. Here we outline the many areas of science that would greatly benefit from an LSST survey that included the Galactic Plane, Magellanic Clouds and Bulge at a cadence of 2-3 d. Particular highlights include measuring the mass spectrum of black holes, and mapping the population of exoplanets in the Galaxy in relation to variations in star forming environments. But the same survey data will provide a goldmine for a wide range of science, and we explore possible survey strategies which maximize the scientific return for a number of fields including young stellar objects, cataclysmic variables and Neptune Trojans.

Read this paper on arXiv…

R. Street, M. Lund, S. Khakpash, et. al.
Mon, 10 Dec 18
28/57

Comments: White Paper submitted in response to the 2018 call for LSST cadence proposals