BLISS Science Workshop

27 Mar 2017, 08:00 → 28 Mar 2017, 19:00 US/Central

RaceTrack (WH7X) (Fermilab)

Alex Drlica-Wagner (Fermilab), James Annis (Fermilab), Marcelle Soares-Santos (Fermilab)

The goal of this workshop is to make progress on science analyses using data from the Blanco Images of the Southern Sky (BLISS) survey. BLISS aims to establish complete griz Blanco/DECam coverage of the extra-galactic sky below declination 30 degrees with 3x90 second exposures by selectively imaging areas where such coverage is lacking. Three areas of ongoing activities are:

• multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves,
• searches for the hypothesized 9th planet in our solar system, and
• completion of the deepest unbiased survey of Milky Way satellite galaxies in the southern hemisphere.

Other science areas will also be pursued by the group, e.g.:

• search for lensed quasars
• galaxy clusters
• photometric redshifts
• variable stars

BLISS optimizes data taking efficiency by filling the sky around previously surveyed areas and other community time programs, complementing them with additional bands and/or depth as needed. Accomplishing full sky coverage before the start of LSST is essential to maximize the science returns of DECam.

BLISS images are made publicly available immediately. A series of public data releases of processed images and catalogs are also being planned and will be discussed at the workshop.

Monday, 27 March

09:30 → 12:00 Ongoing Projects

09:30 Intro

Speaker: Marcelle Soares-Santos (Fermilab)

09:50 Data Processing

Speaker: Brian Yanny (FNAL)

Slides Y3A1BLISS.pdf

10:10 GW

Speaker: James Annis (Fermilab)

Slides annis-bliss-mar-2017.pdf

10:30 MW

Speaker: Alex Drlica-Wagner (Fermilab)

10:50 P9

Speaker: David Gerdes (University of Michigan)

11:10 Organization of Working Groups

13:00 → 15:30 Working Group 1

13:00 → 15:30 Working Group 2

13:00 → 15:30 Working Group 3

16:00 → 17:30 New projects and ideas

16:00 Galaxies

Speaker: Huan Lin (Fermilab)

16:45 Time domain

Speaker: Masao Sako

Tuesday, 28 March

09:30 → 12:00 Working Group 4

09:30 → 12:00 Working Group 5

13:00 → 17:00 Closeout