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Scientific value from sparse LSST detections of stellar flares

Determine whether the sparse single-epoch or two-point detections of stellar flares obtained in the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time Wide-Fast-Deep main survey can yield scientifically valuable information about the flares, given the survey’s cadence and the short rise and decay timescales of flares.

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Background

The Wide-Fast-Deep component of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time will typically capture only 1–2 data points for most stellar flares due to LSST’s revisit cadence and the flares’ short rise and decay timescales. This sparsity precludes traditional time-resolved photometric analyses.

This constraint raises the fundamental question of whether any scientifically valuable information can still be extracted from such limited detections in the main survey, motivating methods such as leveraging differential chromatic refraction to infer flare properties from single-epoch data.

References

While it is certain that Rubin will observe many flares, whether or not we can access scientifically valuable information from those detections is currently an open question.

— Every Datapoint Counts: Stellar Flares as a Case Study of Atmosphere Aided Studies of Transients in the LSST Era (2402.06002 - Clarke et al., 8 Feb 2024) in Section 1 (Introduction)