Hello, data q&a watchers—
This is somewhat related to Alessandro’s question about survey depth: Depths for DR1 and more - Science / Data Q&A - Rubin Observatory LSST Community forum.
Are there any specific plans for producing completeness functions (detection efficiency vs. magnitude and perhaps other observables) for released catalogs, or tools for users to compute them if they impose their own selections (e.g., for a limited footprint, or an altered estimated-magnitude threshold)?
In Alessandro’s thread, @MelissaGraham pointed to the 2019 LSST paper for info about survey depths per band: LSST: From Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products - NASA/ADS. There’s a detailed discussion of survey completeness there for PHAs/NEOs (see, e.g., Fig 20), but even for those, there are estimates of completeness brighter than a single fiducial (absolute) magnitude, but not completeness vs. (apparent) magnitude. And I didn’t see any specific plan for providing data products that compile completeness vs. magnitude (for various source types), or tools for users to compute them (e.g., for a specific footprint, or for a below-nominal threshold), though it’s a long paper and I might have missed this.
I understand that users may impose complicated cuts so that there can’t be a universal set of completeness functions. But I’d like to know if the DPs and DRs will include tables or tools to assist users in computing completeness functions.
—Tom