The LSST DESC DC2 Simulated Sky Survey
Creators: name: LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration
name: Abolfathi, Bela
name: Alonso, David
name: Armstrong, Robert
name: Aubourg, Éric
name: Awan, Humna
name: Babuji, Yadu N.
name: Bauer, Franz Erik
name: Bean, Rachel
name: Beckett, George
name: Biswas, Rahul
name: Bogart, Joanne R.
name: Boutigny, Dominique
name: Chard, Kyle
name: Chiang, James
name: Claver, Chuck F.
name: Cohen-Tanugi, Johann
name: Combet, Céline
name: Connolly, Andrew J.
name: Daniel, Scott F.
name: Digel, Seth W.
name: Drlica-Wagner, Alex
name: Dubois, Richard
name: Gangler, Emmanuel
name: Gawiser, Eric
name: Glanzman, Thomas
name: Gris, Phillipe
name: Habib, Salman
name: Hearin, Andrew P.
name: Heitmann, Katrin
name: Hernandez, Fabio
name: Hložek, Renée
name: Hollowed, Joseph
name: Ishak, Mustapha
name: Ivezić, Željko
name: Jarvis, Mike
name: Jha, Saurabh W.
name: Kahn, Steven M.
name: Kalmbach, J. Bryce
name: Kelly, Heather M.
name: Kovacs, Eve
name: Korytov, Danila
name: Krughoff, K. Simon
name: Lage, Craig S.
name: Lanusse, François
name: Larsen, Patricia
name: Guillou, Laurent Le
name: Li, Nan
name: Longley, Emily Phillips
name: Lupton, Robert H.
name: Mandelbaum, Rachel
name: Mao, Yao-Yuan
name: Marshall, Phil
name: Meyers, Joshua E.
name: Moniez, Marc
name: Morrison, Christopher B.
name: Nomerotski, Andrei
name: O'Connor, Paul
name: Park, HyeYun
name: Park, Ji Won
name: Peloton, Julien
name: Perrefort, Daniel
name: Perry, James
name: Plaszczynski, Stéphane
name: Pope, Adrian
name: Rasmussen, Andrew
name: Reil, Kevin
name: Roodman, Aaron J.
name: Rykoff, Eli S.
name: Sánchez, F. Javier
name: Schmidt, Samuel J.
name: Scolnic, Daniel
name: Stubbs, Christopher W.
name: Tyson, J. Anthony
name: Uram, Thomas D.
name: Villarreal, Antonia
name: Walter, Christopher W.
name: Wiesner, Matthew P.
name: Wood-Vasey, W. Michael
name: Zuntz, Joe
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We describe the simulated sky survey underlying the second data challenge (DC2) carried out in preparation for analysis of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) by the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (LSST DESC). Significant connections across multiple science domains will be a hallmark of LSST; the DC2 program represents a unique modeling effort that stresses this interconnectivity in a way that has not been attempted before. This effort encompasses a full end-to-end approach: starting from a large N-body simulation, through setting up LSST-like observations including realistic cadences, through image simulations, and finally processing with Rubin's LSST Science Pipelines. This last step ensures that we generate data products resembling those to be delivered by the Rubin Observatory as closely as is currently possible. The simulated DC2 sky survey covers six optical bands in a wide-fast-deep (WFD) area of approximately 300 deg^2 as well as a deep drilling field (DDF) of approximately 1 deg^2. We simulate 5 years of the planned 10-year survey. The DC2 sky survey has multiple purposes. First, the LSST DESC working groups can use the dataset to develop a range of DESC analysis pipelines to prepare for the advent of actual data. Second, it serves as a realistic testbed for the image processing software under development for LSST by the Rubin Observatory. In particular, simulated data provide a controlled way to investigate certain image-level systematic effects. Finally, the DC2 sky survey enables the exploration of new scientific ideas in both static and time-domain cosmology.
description: 39 pages, 19 figures, version accepted for publication in ApJS