Palomar Transient Factory (and what it can do for BigBOSS)

Palomar Transient Factory(and what it can do for BigBOSS) Peter Nugent (LBNL)

PTF (2009-2013) • CFH12k camera on the Palomar Oschin Schmidt telescope • 7.8 sq deg field of view, 1” pixels • 60s exposures with 20s readout in r, g and H-alpha • Improvements to telescope (seeing, tracking, scheduling) • First light Nov. 24, 2008. • First useful science images on Jan 13th. • 2 Cadences (Mar. - Nov.) • Nightly (35% of time) on nearby galaxies and clusters (g/r) • Every 5 nights (65% of time) on SDSS fields with minimum coverage of 2500 sq deg. (r) to 20th mag 10-sigma • H-alpha during bright time (full +/-2 days) Nov-Feb, minute cadences on select fields. BigBOSS

Camera One of the chips is currently dead, but efforts will be made this winter to fix it. BigBOSS

Camera The RMS as a function of g-band magnitude after relative and absolute photometric calibration was applied to PTF observations of a single field observed at 60 epochs. Our basic* de-trending scheme already allows for a 3-mmag photometric accuracy at the bright end and about 4% accuracy around mag 19. *basic = Shri’s polite term for what this former theorist was able to come up with as part of a real-time pipeline. IPAC is working on the final pipeline BigBOSS

PTF Science The power of PTF resides in its diverse science goals and follow-up. BigBOSS

PTF Science BigBOSS

PTF Pipeline 128 MB/90s 50 GB/night BigBOSS

PTF First Images M31 as seen from PTF in February 2009. 412 images went into making this co-add. Faintest stars you can see on this image are R=23 magnitude. BigBOSS

PTF Coverage in 150 nights 12,750 imaged at least 10 times to date. BigBOSS

PTF Depth 2 months lost due to the Great Station Fire in LA. BigBOSS

H-alpha The surface brightness sensitivity (Rayleigh, R) of the proposed PTF H- survey (and other surveys) as a function of angular (pixel) size (filled circle). The estimated 5- point source flux limit for the H- survey will be ~0.6 Rayleigh (for 120-s integration time). Better sensitivity by a factor of ~60 can be achieved by binning the H- images to a resolution of 1' (hence the sloping lines). The IPHAS survey has superior sensitivity but is limited to the Galactic plane. BigBOSS

PTF Totals N = 151 BigBOSS

PTF advantages Great for finding young SNe and discerning the difference between them and variable stars, AGN, qso, etc. The five in red were sent to HST for follow-up UV observations 8-14 days before peak brightness. N = 151 BigBOSS

PTF and BOSS Already the survey has identified proposed QSO targets for BOSS In the Stripe 82 list of candidates (19206) PTF has observed 7531 of them 10+ times - 531 show variability - 10 we id’d. N = 205 N = 30 BigBOSS

Conclusions - Future • All of the data becomes public 18 months after it is taken. • We should achieve S/N=7 at R=23.5 and g=23.5 given 4hrs on each, which would be minimum coverage. • However, the g-band observations, at present, may not be all accomplished by 2012 • They are amenable to extending the survey to achieve this. BigBOSS

Palomar Transient Factory (and what it can do for BigBOSS)