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Simulations Questions. Following the Photons Workshop Edinburgh 2011/10/10. Mirriam-Webster: Simulate 1. To give or assume the appearance of. Often with the intent to deceive. Why build simulators?. To speed up development of data processing pipelines?
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Simulations Questions Following the Photons Workshop Edinburgh 2011/10/10
Mirriam-Webster: • Simulate 1. To give or assume the appearance of. Often with the intent to deceive.
Why build simulators? • To speed up development of data processing pipelines? • Is there any substitute for real data? • To aid hardware design/development? • Optics: Long history with Zemax • Need for new tools (open source?, parallelized?) • Mech. Eng. FEA • To speed hardware commissioning? • To optimize survey strategies? • To sell projects to funding agencies? • To keep the community happy while we wait for the $Nbn instrument to be funded or built?
How should we simulate? • Does every project need its own simulator? • What development can/should be shared? • How much complexity in input physics is appropriate? • Example: LSST style image simulator • Source morphology distributions? • Connect to LSS simulations? • Light propagation • waves vs photons? - are photons really easier? • Lensing effects (weak, strong) • Atmospheric effects • Kolmogorov? Gaussian? Layer height distribution • Dome seeing effects? • Potential to keep adding bells and whistles? When do we stop? Do we need to pre-define requirements?
Mirriam-Webster: • Simulate 1. To give or assume the appearance of. Often with the intent to deceive. • Are we deceiving ourselves? • When (if ever) were performance limiting problems foreseen and simulated? • How can we better anticipate such problems? • Open review of simulation efforts • Are we deceiving the funding agencies? • When (if ever) are “root-N” arguments valid? • When (if ever) are estimates of “systematic error” legitimate? • When (if ever) are simple “figures of merit” legitimate? • What if we’ve missed something in the basic input physics • E.g. effect of gastrodynamics on high-l WL • What are the consequences?