The SCOC is advisory to the Rubin Observatory Operations Director (currently Bob Blum). It will begin its work in 2020, and will be a standing committee throughout the life of Rubin Observatory operations.
Its tasks are as follows:
The SCOC will consist of roughly 10 individuals, named by the Rubin Observatory LSST Science Advisory Committee (SAC) and drawn almost entirely from the science community (i.e., from people not paid by the Rubin Observatory Project). It will be chaired, however, by the Rubin Observatory LSST Head of Science (currently Zeljko Ivezic), who will be a non-voting member.
While the existing LSST Science Collaborations will be a source of members of the SCOC, individuals will not represent the specific scientific interests of the LSST Science Collaborations they happen to be members of, but (like the SAC) will work to optimize the global scientific productivity of the Rubin Observatory LSST.
The SCOC will be mostly comprised of scientists from both the US and Chile, and should include at least one individual from Chile.
The SCOC will need expertise in the various areas which pull the cadence decisions in specific directions; a partial list follows:
To broaden the expertise of the SCOC itself, it will actively seek input and advice from members of the scientific community and the LSST Science Collaborations. The SCOC members will be free to share information presented in the SCOC discussions with the experts with whom it consults.
Membership on this committee will initially be for two years, with possibility of renewal.
The SCOC will start its deliberations in summer 2020. It will meet by default once a month via telecon through the first year or so of operations; we anticipate that the rate of meetings can slow down after that. Occasional face-to-face meetings will likely be necessary, especially as major decision points are reached. The SCOC Chair will schedule the meetings. The Project would provide logistical and financial support for those meetings (including travel costs for all participants). The Project will also endeavor to provide occasional travel support for SCOC members to travel to scientific conferences to gain insight into some of the issues that the SCOC is exploring.
As mentioned above, the SCOC will reach out to the scientific community and the LSST Science Collaborations when expertise is needed in specific areas. An open process of communication with members of LSST Science Collaborations will lead to better understanding of, and community buy-in to, the SCOC recommendations.
The SCOC chair will be responsible for informing, and where appropriate consulting with, all relevant operations partners, including the US governmental funding agencies.
The SCOC would operate by consensus to the extent possible. But formal votes would be taken at major decision points:
The results of these votes will be recorded in the SCOC minutes.
The minutes of the SCOC, and the reports it writes to the Operations Director, will be made public, and will be posted on lsst.org and other websites as appropriate.
The Science Advisory Committee (SAC) is responsible for drafting the SCOC charge (i.e., this document), and identifying members to serve on the SCOC.
The Survey Evaluation Working Group (SEWG) includes representatives from Observatory Operations and Data Production (i.e., it mostly consists of individuals within the Project). On a quarterly basis, it evaluates the current and expected performance of the scheduler, and presents its findings both to the Operations Director and to the SCOC.
Željko Ivezić, Rubin Observatory, Chair
Franz Bauer, Universidad Católica, Chile
Sarah Brough, University of New South Wales
Renee Hlozek, University of Toronto
Mansi Kasliwal, Caltech
Knut Olsen, NSF’s NOIRLab
Hiranya Peiris, University College London
Meg Schwamb, Queen's University Belfast
Dan Scolnic, Duke University
Colin Slater, University of Washington
Jay Strader, Michigan State University
Lucianne Walkowicz, Adler Planetarium
Lynne Jones, Rubin Observatory, ex officio
Financial support for LSST comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Cooperative Agreement No. 1258333, the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, and private funding raised by the LSST Corporation. The NSF-funded LSST Project Office for construction was established as an operating center under management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). The DOE-funded effort to build the LSST camera is managed by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an
independent federal agency created by Congress
in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.
NSF and DOE will continue to support LSST in its Operations phase. They will also provide support for scientific research with LSST data.
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