The Zwicky Transient Facility

TL;DR

The Zwicky Transient Facility is a new wide-field optical survey that rapidly scans large sky areas to discover rare transient events, building on previous survey experience with improved speed and capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a new 47 square degree camera and survey strategy that significantly increases the survey speed over previous facilities like PTF.

Findings

Enables detection of rare transients and variables.

Supports searches for young supernovae and gravitational-wave counterparts.

Provides high-cadence, wide-area sky coverage.

Abstract

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a next-generation optical synoptic survey that builds on the experience and infrastructure of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). Using a new 47 deg$^2$ survey camera, ZTF will survey more than an order of magnitude faster than PTF to discover rare transients and variables. I describe the survey and the camera design. Searches for young supernovae, fast transients, counterparts to gravitational-wave detections, and rare variables will benefit from ZTF's high cadence, wide area survey.