Date:

Time: 13:00 ET 

Link to Video recording

Passcode: $6LfzGAa


VLASS SSG Meeting Notes

  • VLASS News:
    1. Observing and data processing status – Amy Kimball
      • About 50% of VLASS3.1 has been observed. Re-prioritization to accommodate other A-priority observations in the queue was implemented recently.
      • Some data processing software infrastructure challenges have been encountered
      • ~15% of QL images (Epoch 2) are out
      • Automated QA is going fantastically! → extension to SE imaging


  1. Commensal surveys
    • VCSS - Wendy Peters
      • Antenna configuration challenges (affecting PSF quality)
      • Processing in progress
    • COSMIC - Chenoa Trembley
      • Data being recorded during VLASS
      • Calibration/pipelines working well
      • Extending to other bands beyond S


  1. CIRADA updates – Bryan Gaensler
    • Lerato and Biny making progress with polarimetry and catalog vetting
      • Polarization - Jennifer West
      • Transients - Dillon Dong
        • Catalog paper in progress (with Yuyang Chen)


  1. Science highlights



    1. Splinter session update for AAS #242 (June 2023) – Steve Myers
      • No need to be a AAS member to attend, will be hybrid
      • Current plan:
        • 2 X 2 hour sessions (morning and afternoon)
        • Avoid: Sunday before meeting (that’s when VLA tour is happening) and Thursday (last day)
  • Question: SSG members planning to attend AAS #242?
          • Dillon Dong
          • Chenoa Trembley
          • Emil Polisensky (NRL; can support technical/science applications with VCSS)
        • Focus: science + using sky survey, 
        • New featured data: Unveiling the single epoch cubes, polarimetry, combining with other surveys
  • Draft of splinter session summary to be sent around by email by Steve (comments wanted, due March 9)
    • RADIAL student involvement - Dillon
      • VLASS summer student science project ideas (looking for collaborators)
        • Stellar radio transients (highly polarized)
          • Have someone who knows how to run the user defined pipeline teach the students
        • Steep spectrum emission from pulsars (using VCSS), follow-up with polarimetry, GBT, etc.
          • Shami: develop a “scoring system” for candidate pulsars based on properties.  See VLASS survey proposal
      • Important: Use splinter session as learning opportunity for RADIAL students (and more broadly for students in general who are using VLASS data for their summer projects/thesis work)


  1. January AAS special session?
    • Limitation: computing and personnel limited, need to pick which single epoch images to prioritize
      • Question to SSG: what tiles should be prioritized for SE imaging?
        • Sources with known polarization properties?
        • Galactic plane?
        • Surveys?
        • Stripe 82
        • Community call for proposals on what targets/fields to prioritize?


  • SE polarization cube demonstration release - Mark Lacy
    • 12 x 1 deg^2 IQU coarse (128MHz channel width) cubes (and an averaged V plane) is now available here.
    • The first draft of the users' guide is available here
    • Comments welcome, to be discussed further at the next meeting
    • To do: post to Slack (#polarization and/or #general channel) - Mark


  • VLASS Epoch 4 discussion (Postponed to a future meeting)
    • New synergy opportunities with Roman, LSST, etc.
    • Main science drivers:
      • Transients
        • Discovery of TDEs, SNe, etc.
        • Radio AGN life cycles (decade-long cadence necessary)
      • Faint star-forming galaxies
    • New commensal opportunities
      • COSMIC 
      • VCSS
      • REALFAST
    • Tentative SSG proposal deadline: January 2025


  • Next meeting: Monday, April 3th at 1pm EST / 11am MST / 18:00 UTC


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Reference material:

  • Terms of reference document: pdf 
  • VLASS Slack workspace and SSG channel (contact Bryan Gaensler)
  • Confluence page
  • Next meeting: Monday, April 2nd at 1pm EST / 11am MST / 18:00 UTC
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