Intrinsic Pixel Size Variation in an LSST Prototype Sensor
Abstract
The ambitious science goals of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) have motivated a search for new and unexpected sources of systematic error in the LSST camera. Flat-field images are a rich source of data on sensor anomalies, although such effects are typically dwarfed by shot noise in a single flat field. After combining many () such images into `ultraflats' to reduce the impact of shot noise, we perform photon transfer analysis on a pixel-by-pixel basis and observe no spatial structure in pixel linearity or gain at light levels of 100 ke and below. At 125 ke, a columnar structure is observed in the gain map--we attribute this to a flux-dependent charge transfer inefficiency. We also probe small-scale variations in effective pixel size by analyzing pixel-neighbor correlations in ultraflat images, where we observe clear evidence of intrinsic variation in effective pixel size in an LSST prototype sensor near the level.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1504.06088,
title = {Intrinsic Pixel Size Variation in an LSST Prototype Sensor},
author = {Michael Baumer and Aaron Roodman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.06088},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
8 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to the proceedings of "Precision Astronomy with Fully Depleted CCDs", held at Brookhaven National Laboratory, December 4-5, 2014