The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS). Science case and survey design
Abstract
The Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) is a synoptic, all-sky radio sky survey with a unique combination of high angular resolution (2.5"), sensitivity (a 1 goal of 70 Jy/beam in the coadded data), full linear Stokes polarimetry, time domain coverage, and wide bandwidth (2-4 GHz). The first observations began in September 2017, and observing for the survey will finish in 2024. VLASS will use approximately 5500 hours of time on the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to cover the whole sky visible to the VLA (Declination ), a total of 33,885 deg. The data will be taken in three epochs to allow the discovery of variable and transient radio sources. The survey is designed to engage radio astronomy experts, multi-wavelength astronomers, and citizen scientists alike. By utilizing an "on the fly" interferometry mode, the observing overheads are much reduced compared to a conventional pointed survey. In this paper, we present the science case and observational strategy for the survey, and also results from early survey observations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1907.01981,
title = {The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS). Science case and survey design},
author = {M. Lacy and S. A. Baum and C. J. Chandler and S. Chatterjee and T. E. Clarke and S. Deustua and J. English and J. Farnes and B. M. Gaensler and N. Gugliucci and G. Hallinan and B. R. Kent and A. Kimball and C. J. Law and T. J. W. Lazio and J. Marvil and S. A. Mao and D. Medlin and K. Mooley and E. J. Murphy and S. Myers and R. Osten and G. T. Richards and E. Rosolowsky and L. Rudnick and F. Schinzel and G. R. Sivakoff and L. O. Sjouwerman and R. Taylor and R. L. White and J. Wrobel and H. Andernach and A. J. Beasley and E. Berger and S. Bhatnagar and M. Birkinshaw and G. C. Bower and W. N. Brandt and S. Brown and S. Burke-Spolaor and B. J. Butler and J. Comerford and P. B. Demorest and H. Fu and S. Giacintucci and K. Golap and T. Guth and C. A. Hales and R. Hiriart and J. Hodge and A. Horesh and Z. Ivezic and M. J. Jarvis and A. Kamble and N. Kassim and X. Liu and L. Loinard and D. K. Lyons and J. Masters and M. Mezcua and G. A. Moellenbrock and T. Mroczkowski and K. Nyland and C. P. O'Dea and S. P. O'Sullivan and W. M. Peters and K. Radford and U. Rao and J. Robnett and J. Salcido and Y. Shen and A. Sobotka and S. Witz and M. Vaccari and R. J. van Weeren and A. Vargas and P. K. G. Williams and I. Yoon},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.01981},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
34 pages, accepted by PASP (modified from prior version to address referee's and coauthor comments). (v2) Minor fixes to author list