Stellar Population Science with LSST

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

The LSST will produce a multi-color photometric catalog of half the sky to r=27.6 (AB mag; 5-sigma). Multi-epoch observations over the survey's ten year baseline will allow variability, proper motion and parallax measurements for objects as faint as r=24.7. These capabilities allow LSST to identify and characterize resolved stellar populations in unprecedented breadth and detail, enabling a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the star formation history of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. The stellar populations science that LSST will enable includes: completing the solar neighborhood census by measuring accurate parallaxes (sigmapi = 6 mas) and proper motions (sigmapm = 2 mas/yr) for low--mass stars and brown dwarfs to a very faint limit (y < 21.4); assembling large samples of eclipsing binaries, subdwarfs and white dwarfs to measure fundamental physical parameters of stars and stellar systems; enabling photometric metallicity determinations (down to [Fe/H] = -2.5, or lower) for main-sequence stars in the LSST footprint; constructing a comprehensive, homogeneous census of southern star clusters to characterize stellar evolution as a function of age and chemical composition; measure the star formation history of the Milky Way's thin disk over the last 2-3 Gyrs by interpreting rotation periods of solar analogs with calibrated gyrochronology relations; mapping the location, chemistry, and ages of stars turning off the main-sequence (MS) at all distances within the Galaxy, Magellanic Clouds, and dwarf satellites of the Milky Way; map out the star formation history and structure of the Magellanic clouds to distances exceeding 15 degrees and surface brightness densities below 35 mags. per square arc sec; fine tuning the extragalactic distance scale by examining properties of RR Lyraes and Cepheids as a function of parent populations.

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