The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results
Creators: name: Bellm, Eric C.
name: Kulkarni, Shrinivas R.
name: Graham, Matthew J.
name: Dekany, Richard
name: Smith, Roger M.
name: Riddle, Reed
name: Masci, Frank J.
name: Helou, George
name: Prince, Thomas A.
name: Adams, Scott M.
name: Barbarino, C.
name: Barlow, Tom
name: Bauer, James
name: Beck, Ron
name: Belicki, Justin
name: Biswas, Rahul
name: Blagorodnova, Nadejda
name: Bodewits, Dennis
name: Bolin, Bryce
name: Brinnel, Valery
name: Brooke, Tim
name: Bue, Brian
name: Bulla, Mattia
name: Burruss, Rick
name: Cenko, S. Bradley
name: Chang, Chan-Kao
name: Connolly, Andrew
name: Coughlin, Michael
name: Cromer, John
name: Cunningham, Virginia
name: De, Kishalay
name: Delacroix, Alex
name: Desai, Vandana
name: Duev, Dmitry A.
name: Eadie, Gwendolyn
name: Farnham, Tony L.
name: Feeney, Michael
name: Feindt, Ulrich
name: Flynn, David
name: Franckowiak, Anna
name: Frederick, S.
name: Fremling, C.
name: Gal-Yam, Avishay
name: Gezari, Suvi
name: Giomi, Matteo
name: Goldstein, Daniel A.
name: Golkhou, V. Zach
name: Goobar, Ariel
name: Groom, Steven
name: Hacopians, Eugean
name: Hale, David
name: Henning, John
name: Ho, Anna Y. Q.
name: Hover, David
name: Howell, Justin
name: Hung, Tiara
name: Huppenkothen, Daniela
name: Imel, David
name: Ip, Wing-Huen
name: Ivezić, Željko
name: Jackson, Edward
name: Jones, Lynne
name: Juric, Mario
name: Kasliwal, Mansi M.
name: Kaspi, S.
name: Kaye, Stephen
name: Kelley, Michael S. P.
name: Kowalski, Marek
name: Kramer, Emily
name: Kupfer, Thomas
name: Landry, Walter
name: Laher, Russ R.
name: Lee, Chien-De
name: Lin, Hsing Wen
name: Lin, Zhong-Yi
name: Lunnan, Ragnhild
name: Giomi, Matteo
name: Mahabal, Ashish
name: Mao, Peter
name: Miller, Adam A.
name: Monkewitz, Serge
name: Murphy, Patrick
name: Ngeow, Chow-Choong
name: Nordin, Jakob
name: Nugent, Peter
name: Ofek, Eran
name: Patterson, Maria T.
name: Penprase, Bryan
name: Porter, Michael
name: Rauch, Ludwig
name: Rebbapragada, Umaa
name: Reiley, Dan
name: Rigault, Mickael
name: Rodriguez, Hector
name: van Roestel, Jan
name: Rusholme, Ben
name: van Santen, Jakob
name: Schulze, S.
name: Shupe, David L.
name: Singer, Leo P.
name: Soumagnac, Maayane T.
name: Stein, Robert
name: Surace, Jason
name: Sollerman, Jesper
name: Szkody, Paula
name: Taddia, F.
name: Terek, Scott
name: Van Sistine, Angela
name: van Velzen, Sjoert
name: Vestrand, W. Thomas
name: Walters, Richard
name: Ward, Charlotte
name: Ye, Quan-Zhi
name: Yu, Po-Chieh
name: Yan, Lin
name: Zolkower, Jeffry
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: 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$^2$ 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.
description: Published in PASP Focus Issue on the Zwicky Transient Facility (https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/aaecbe). 21 Pages, 12 Figures