Rationale

The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) at Vera C. Rubin Observatory is set to start in the next couple of years. The LSST survey cadence is designed in an iterative community driven process (Bianco+2021). The implementation of a Target of Opportunity (ToO) program using up to 3% of the LSST sky time has been recommended by the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC; see PSTN-055). This program is recommended to initially respond to Gravitational Wave triggers, but with the potential to expand to other phenomena of interest. This workshop will bring together experts from the scientific community, Rubin Observatory personnel, and members of the Rubin SCOC to deliver a recommendation for the implementation of the ToO program. These include: how to select and prioritize triggers, automate response to triggers, and what exposures, filters, and cadence are required.

The workshop is designed with plenary discussion to explain the boundary conditions for ToOs set by the Observatory, and collaborative breakouts to define the needs of identified scientific cases, and develop trigger and prioritization schemes.

Goal

The Rubin ToO 2024 workshop will bring together members of the community with scientific interest and knowledge in ToO observations to make recommendations to the SCOC of LSST. The product of this workshop will be a document delivered to the SCOC at the end of the workshop.

Workshop Products

Essential info

Dates: March 18-20, 2024.

Registration: Registration for in-person participation will be open until February 15. If more spots are available registration will remain open capacity is reached. Registration will remain open until February 29th for remote participation. There is no conference fee thanks to the hospitality of UC Berkeley. Travel support may be available and will be distributed to participants that need it. You will be able to request travel support in the registration process. If needed, participants will be selected to receive support on the basis of seniority and to ensure an overall diverse participant pool. All participants who requested support will be contacted by the end of January. Register here or find the link below.

Location: Brower Center, University of California, Berkeley.

Travel and lodging: A room block has been reserved at the Shuttock Plaza hotel. Follow the link at the bottom of this webpage for information and to reserve a room at the designated hotel (deadline February 2nd).

Scientific Organizing Committee: Igor Andreoni, Federica Bianco, Anna Franckowiak, Tim Lister, Raffaella Margutti, Graham Smith

Local Organizing Committee: Raffaella Margutti, Josh Bloom, Ryan Chornock, Steve Kahn

Communications: Slack will be the main communication method. An invite to the slack workspace will be sent to the participants. The organizers can also be reached at this email address: tooworkshop2024 at gmail.com

Program

This is a working workshop: the goal of the workshop is to produce a report to be delivered to the SCOC containing recommendations for how to implement ToO responses with Rubin. This is the report template. There are no plenary or contributed talks. Some time slots are dedicated to presentations that set the goals of the workshop, establish the working modalities, clarify the Rubin ToO program constraints (yellow). Community time slots are reserved to present science cases that should be considered for the Rubin ToO program, as identified in the registration form by participants and for intermediate and final summaries of the groups' work (blue). The rest of the time is dedicated to collaboratively working toward the workshop report. Common workshop hours for all participants are 8:30AM - 1:45 PM Pacific / 11:30 AM -4:45 PM Eastern / 16:30 - 21:45 Central European Time. Furhter synchronous work is organized in two time slots: for the Americas, collaborative work is expected to happen in the Pacific afternoon/Eastern evening (13:45-19:00 Pacific time). Europe, Africa, and Asia timezones are expected to work synchronously on zoom in the Central European afternoon blocks (14:00-16:00 Central European Time)

Report template

    Deadlines:

    • January 25th: Travel support requests deadline (see registration form)
    • February 2nd: Hotel block reservations (see lodging link below)
    • February 15th: in person participation registration deadline (if more spots are available registration will remain open until capacity is reached).
    • February 29th: remote participation registration deadline.
    • February 15th: planned release of the report template.
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Code of Conduct

This meeting and related online activities follow the Rubin meetings' Code of Conduct which enforces the AURA Harassment and Code of Conduct Policy. Harassment and unprofessional conduct of any kind, including the use of offensive language, is not permitted at any time and should be reported.

We firmly reject all kinds of abusive and non inclusive behavior. The organizers have worked towards providing a welcoming, safe environment that encourages the free expression and exchange of ideas of all the participants. Every attendee is expected to make their individual contribution towards a respectful and inclusive meeting climate. Any discriminatory behavior against colleagues on any basis, such as gender, race, ethnic background, national or Indigenous origin, religion, political affiliation, age, marital status, sexual orientation, ability or disabilities, or any other reason will not be tolerated during the event, on both the online and in person platforms, in synchronous and asynchronous activities.

Raise All Voices During sessions and discussions, pay attention to who is contributing. Chairs are encouraged to be conscious of their biases and avoid preferentially selecting some people and/or paying attention to only some parts of the room. Discreetly invite contributions from quieter members of the group, making sure you are not embarrassing them or drawing undesirable attention (ask "what do junior people think" or "people from smaller colleges" for example) and be conscientious of not dominating the conversation. We understand that it can be exciting to discuss a new idea, but always strive to listen (rather than just wait your turn to speak).

Be generous with your knowledge Take time to explain and do not belittle others for what they do or do not know.

Critique ideas, not people or communities

Rubin Observatory adheres to the following principles in order to provide a working environment that produces rigor and excellence:

Kindness Acting with and encouraging kindness strengthens individuals, relationships, and communities.
Trust An inclusive, collaborative environment is best achieved when there is mutual trust, based upon honest behavior, throughout the community.
Respect Inclusive environments foster excellence by challenging us to consider a variety of viewpoints and approaches. We honor alternate viewpoints as opportunities for discussion and learning, and therefore treat others with respect, even if we disagree.
Diversity In a diverse community, differences between people are recognized and acknowledged as assets. Our community is stronger, more creative, and more innovative because it is fueled by a broad range of ideas and perspectives.
Inclusiveness Rubin recognizes the importance of actively including and encouraging involvement from all corners; diversity is only a benefit if all members feel empowered to participate.

Reporting and help: Reporting bullying, harassment, or aggression at Organizing Committees appointed two designated contact people for reporting instances of bullying, harassment, or aggression: Rachel Street (rsrteet at lco dot global) and Steve Ritz (sritz at ucsd dot edu). The contact persons are able to advise participants on how to deal with hostile situations and incidents. In the case that an event is reported, and with the approval of the reporting person, the designated contact persons will approach the offending person(s) to discuss how their behavior is causing distress to other participants and remind them of the code of conduct. If more serious measures are needed, the designated contact person should inform the reporting person(s) of the procedure to follow. Should a participant witness events of bullying, harassment, or aggression, please contact the person who suffered the abuse to show support and possibly suggest for them to talk to one of the designated contact people. The decision to approach the contact person should, however, ultimately be left to the person who suffered the abuse. Should you be contacted about having violated the Code of Conduct: our behavior impacts the people around us and we may inadvertently hurt them. If a colleague or the contact person reaches out to you letting you know your behavior has negatively impacted other participants and it is in violation of our code of conduct you should (1) focus on the impact - even if your intentions were not to do harm your actions have affected others. (2) Acknowledge the impact of your action (3) Apologize for the impact of your actions (4) Correct your actions so that we can move on together.

Additional Resources: Rubin, Berkeley Astro

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