The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results
Abstract
The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a new optical time-domain survey that uses the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope. A custom-built wide-field camera provides a 47 deg field of view and 8 second readout time, yielding more than an order of magnitude improvement in survey speed relative to its predecessor survey, the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). We describe the design and implementation of the camera and observing system. The ZTF data system at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center provides near-real-time reduction to identify moving and varying objects. We outline the analysis pipelines, data products, and associated archive. Finally, we present on-sky performance analysis and first scientific results from commissioning and the early survey. ZTF's public alert stream will serve as a useful precursor for that of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1902.01932,
title = {The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results},
author = {Eric C. Bellm and Shrinivas R. Kulkarni and Matthew J. Graham and Richard Dekany and Roger M. Smith and Reed Riddle and Frank J. Masci and George Helou and Thomas A. Prince and Scott M. Adams and C. Barbarino and Tom Barlow and James Bauer and Ron Beck and Justin Belicki and Rahul Biswas and Nadejda Blagorodnova and Dennis Bodewits and Bryce Bolin and Valery Brinnel and Tim Brooke and Brian Bue and Mattia Bulla and Rick Burruss and S. Bradley Cenko and Chan-Kao Chang and Andrew Connolly and Michael Coughlin and John Cromer and Virginia Cunningham and Kishalay De and Alex Delacroix and Vandana Desai and Dmitry A. Duev and Gwendolyn Eadie and Tony L. Farnham and Michael Feeney and Ulrich Feindt and David Flynn and Anna Franckowiak and S. Frederick and C. Fremling and Avishay Gal-Yam and Suvi Gezari and Matteo Giomi and Daniel A. Goldstein and V. Zach Golkhou and Ariel Goobar and Steven Groom and Eugean Hacopians and David Hale and John Henning and Anna Y. Q. Ho and David Hover and Justin Howell and Tiara Hung and Daniela Huppenkothen and David Imel and Wing-Huen Ip and Željko Ivezić and Edward Jackson and Lynne Jones and Mario Juric and Mansi M. Kasliwal and S. Kaspi and Stephen Kaye and Michael S. P. Kelley and Marek Kowalski and Emily Kramer and Thomas Kupfer and Walter Landry and Russ R. Laher and Chien-De Lee and Hsing Wen Lin and Zhong-Yi Lin and Ragnhild Lunnan and Matteo Giomi and Ashish Mahabal and Peter Mao and Adam A. Miller and Serge Monkewitz and Patrick Murphy and Chow-Choong Ngeow and Jakob Nordin and Peter Nugent and Eran Ofek and Maria T. Patterson and Bryan Penprase and Michael Porter and Ludwig Rauch and Umaa Rebbapragada and Dan Reiley and Mickael Rigault and Hector Rodriguez and Jan van Roestel and Ben Rusholme and Jakob van Santen and S. Schulze and David L. Shupe and Leo P. Singer and Maayane T. Soumagnac and Robert Stein and Jason Surace and Jesper Sollerman and Paula Szkody and F. Taddia and Scott Terek and Angela Van Sistine and Sjoert van Velzen and W. Thomas Vestrand and Richard Walters and Charlotte Ward and Quan-Zhi Ye and Po-Chieh Yu and Lin Yan and Jeffry Zolkower},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.01932},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
Published in PASP Focus Issue on the Zwicky Transient Facility (https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/aaecbe). 21 Pages, 12 Figures