The Rapid Transient Surveyor
Abstract
The next decade of astronomy will be dominated by large area surveys (see the detailed discussion in the Astro-2010 Decadal survey and NRC's recent OIR System Report). Ground-based optical transient surveys, e.g., LSST, ZTF and ATLAS and space-based exoplanet, supernova, and lensing surveys such as TESS and WFIRST will join the Gaia all-sky astrometric survey in producing a flood of data that will enable leaps in our understanding of the universe. There is a critical need for further characterization of these discoveries through high angular resolution images, deeper images, spectra, or observations at different cadences or periods than the main surveys. Such follow-up characterization must be well matched to the particular surveys, and requires sufficient additional observing resources and time to cover the extensive number of targets.We describe plans for the Rapid Transient Surveyor (RTS), a permanently mounted, rapid-response, high-cadence facility for follow-up characterization of transient objects on the U. of Hawai'i 2.2-m telescope on Maunakea. RTS will comprise an improved robotic laser adaptive optics system, based on the prototype Robo-AO system (formerly at the Palomar 1.5-m and now at the Kitt Peak 2.2-m telescope), with simultaneous visible and near-infrared imagers as well as a near-infrared integral field spectrograph (R~100, λ = 850 - 1830 nm, 0.15″ spaxels, 8.7″×6.0″ FoV). RTS will achieve an acuity of ~0.07″ in visible wavelengths and < 0.16″ in the near infrared leading to an increase of the infrared point-source sensitivity against the sky background by a factor of ~9, crucial for efficient near-infrared spectroscopy.RTS will allow us to map the dark matter distribution in the z < 0.1 local universe with ten times better accuracy and precision than previous experiments. ATLAS will discover several thousand SNIae per year, measuring SNIa peak brightness, and decline rates, while RTS will measure reddening by dust, confirm SN type and confirm redshifts of the host galaxies. This unique combination of automated detection and characterization of astrophysical transients during a sustained observing campaign will yield the necessary statistics to precisely map dark matter in the local universe.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #227
- Pub Date:
- January 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AAS...22742706B