SIMULATION OF ASTRONOMICAL IMAGES FROM OPTICAL SURVEY TELESCOPES USING A COMPREHENSIVE PHOTON MONTE CARLO APPROACH

Journal Article · Fri May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/218/1/14· OSTI ID:22520220

Peterson, J. R.; Peng, E.; Ahmad, Z.; Bankert, J.; Grace, E.; Hannel, M.; Hodge, M.; Lorenz, S.; Lupu, A.; Meert, A.; Nagarajan, S.; Todd, N.; Winans, A.; Young, M. ^[1]; Jernigan, J. G. ^[2]; Kahn, S. M.; Rasmussen, A. P.; Chang, C.; Gilmore, D. K. ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (United States)
2. Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
3. Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)

We present a comprehensive methodology for the simulation of astronomical images from optical survey telescopes. We use a photon Monte Carlo approach to construct images by sampling photons from models of astronomical source populations, and then simulating those photons through the system as they interact with the atmosphere, telescope, and camera. We demonstrate that all physical effects for optical light that determine the shapes, locations, and brightnesses of individual stars and galaxies can be accurately represented in this formalism. By using large scale grid computing, modern processors, and an efficient implementation that can produce 400,000 photons s{sup −1}, we demonstrate that even very large optical surveys can be now be simulated. We demonstrate that we are able to (1) construct kilometer scale phase screens necessary for wide-field telescopes, (2) reproduce atmospheric point-spread function moments using a fast novel hybrid geometric/Fourier technique for non-diffraction limited telescopes, (3) accurately reproduce the expected spot diagrams for complex aspheric optical designs, and (4) recover system effective area predicted from analytic photometry integrals. This new code, the Photon Simulator (PhoSim), is publicly available. We have implemented the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope design, and it can be extended to other telescopes. We expect that because of the comprehensive physics implemented in PhoSim, it will be used by the community to plan future observations, interpret detailed existing observations, and quantify systematics related to various astronomical measurements. Future development and validation by comparisons with real data will continue to improve the fidelity and usability of the code.

• OSTI ID: 22520220
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, Vol. 218, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0067-0049
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BRIGHTNESS
CAMERAS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COSMIC PHOTONS
COSMOLOGY
DIAGRAMS
DIFFRACTION
GALAXIES
IMAGES
INTEGRALS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
PHOTOMETRY
STARS
TELESCOPES
VISIBLE RADIATION