The RUBIN LSST TRANSIENTS AND VARIABLE STARS SCIENCE collaboration ROADMAP

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Transients and Variable Stars Science Collaboration (TVS SC) is a collaboration that works to maximize the science potential of Rubin LSST while concurrently focusing on the transient sky. One of the four primary goals of Rubin LSST is to “Explore the Changing Sky", which is in direct alignment with the purpose of the TVS SC.

The topic “Transient and Variable Stars" covers a wide range of science fields, making the TVS SC one of the largest and most diverse of all the Rubin LSST Science Collaborations. Research areas include local-universe phenomena such as pulsating stars, eclipsing binary stars and microlensing events, and extra-galactic phenomena including supernovae, GRBs and Blazars. These topics can be further divided by their need for time-critical broker alerts where several science fields, including supernovae, require immediate notification of events and others, such as pulsating stars, which are non-time critical.

Rubin LSST has the potential to revolutionize all these science fields with the extra-deep 18,000 degrees squared LSST survey, and additional minisurveys, microsurveys and deep drilling fields. Over the ten-year survey, the LSST will generate 15 petabytes worth of observations, which amount to ~825/field over 10 years. The aim of the survey in the transient and variable context is to provide new, deep observations of transient stars and cosmic explosions as well as to discover new classes of variables. The roadmap, which can be downloaded from the link below, details all the proposed science cases from the wide array of science fields being researched within the TVS SC. Alongside these science cases, the software, hardware, follow-up data and archival data needs are specified. Consequently, the TVS Roadmap can be utilized as a document that, not only outlines the work that will be done within the TVS SC, but the places where people can contribute to aid in the thorough exploitation of the groundbreaking Rubin LSST data.

Download the TVS Roadmap here.