Letters of Intent received in 2016

LoI 2018-1955
Calibration and Standardization Issues in UV-VIS-IR Astronomy

Topics

•Standardization:
o Need for comprehensive network of spectrophotometric flux standards in the UV-VIS-IR.
o Improve absolute flux for UVIS-IR photometry.
o Synthetic (stellar) libraries for calibration transfer
•Polarimetric Calibration
•Sky Surveys: Strengthen cross survey strategies for data reduction, precision,
•Cross Instrument Calibration: ‘zeropoints’, color transformation, atmospheric effects.
•Units and reference standards: Vega system vs. AB system vs. SI units (W/m2/m, W/m2/Hz). Do we want to establish preferences for future surveys?
•Instrumentation: sensitivity, detector effects, characterization, testing, new technologies
•Calibration Pipelines: Automated telescopes, Large Surveys
•Characterization and calibration of instruments/telescopes before and after deployment

Rationale

Co-location of this focus meeting with the GA in Vienna, Austria is the preferred setting as (1) many of the projected attendees will be at the GA meeting; (2) it has suitable pre-arranged conference facilities for a meeting of this size (c. 100 attendees); and (3) the most recent calibration conference was held in Chicago, IL USA (2012).

This focus meeting aims to bring together active researchers to discuss recent advances in the area of calibrations and standardization, to share successes and failures, and to foster a community of support in solving the challenging problems of calibration and standardization common to many different projects for whom accurate and precise calibration and standards are vital to their success.

We are now well into the era of Big Data where data from panchromatic and deep surveys across the electromagnetic spectrum have revolutionized modern astronomy and astrophysics. One can also argue that observatory archives qualify as big data. 21st Century astrophysics demands uniformity, and, in many cases, high accuracy and precision (1% or better). To meet the ambitious science requirements, and hence maximize the science return from the significant worldwide investment in observatory facilities, accurate and precise calibration is imperative.
Surveys are pushing the envelope of traditional calibration, be it photometry, spectroscopy, astrometry, or polarimetry, by emphasizing any one, some, or all of the following characteristics: panchromatic, very wide field, targeting faint sources, transient source characterization, combining and matching ground to space data, automation, or statistics. The number of surveys is ever increasing: Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the 2 degree Field (2dF), Two-Micron Survey (2MASS), Pan-STARRS, LAMOST, UKIDSS, Dark Energy Survey, LAMOST, HST Deep and Ultra Deep Fields, HST Multi-Cycle Treasury Programs, Great Observatory Survey (GOODS), Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey (SINGS), Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE, Spitzer Legacy Program), GALEX, Herschel Key Programs, Kepler, GAIA, PLANCK, SDO, SOHO. And coming soon: EUCLID, JWST, WFIRST, LSST, VISTA, etc.
One of the Conference’s goals is to discuss (and perhaps establish) minimum standards for calibration across the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as an accessible inventory of calibration bases. Additional areas of discussion are the complex issues in comparing measurements obtained with one instrument to another, i.e. cross instrument and cross survey calibration, increasing the number and spectral and brightness diversity of standard star networks, and improving the absolute flux calibration of the fundamental standards.