The 4MOST facility simulator: instrument and science optimisation

TL;DR

The paper introduces the 4MOST facility simulator, a tool designed to optimize instrument design, develop survey strategies, and verify science goals for the 4MOST project on the ESO VISTA telescope.

Contribution

It presents the design and implementation of a comprehensive simulator for 4MOST, enabling early optimization and validation of the instrument and survey plans.

Findings

Initial results demonstrate the simulator's effectiveness in design optimization.

The simulator helps verify that 4MOST can meet its primary science objectives.

Early use of the simulator improves project planning and decision-making.

Abstract

This paper describes the design and implementation of a facility simulator for the 4 metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) project, a new survey instrument proposed for the ESO VISTA telescope. The 4MOST Facility Simulator (4FS) has several roles, firstly to optimise the design of the instrument, secondly to devise a survey strategy for the wide field design reference surveys that are proposed for 4MOST, and thirdly to verify that 4MOST, as designed, can indeed achieve its primary science goals. We describe the overall structure of the 4FS, together with details of some important 4FS subsystems. We present the initial results from the 4FS which illustrate clearly the value of having a functioning facility simulator very early in the conceptual design phase of this large project.