The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts: Optimizing the Joint Science Return from LSST, Euclid and WFIRST

TL;DR

This paper discusses how combining LSST, Euclid, and WFIRST surveys can significantly enhance astronomical research by providing multi-wavelength, high-resolution data, but requires overcoming technical challenges in data integration.

Contribution

It identifies key scientific opportunities and technical challenges in integrating data from LSST, Euclid, and WFIRST for advanced astronomical studies.

Findings

Combined surveys offer new insights into galaxy formation and neutrino mass.

Multi-wavelength data enhances understanding of stellar and galactic evolution.

Technical challenges include data integration across different resolutions and spectral ranges.

Abstract

The focus of this report is on the opportunities enabled by the combination of LSST, Euclid and WFIRST, the optical surveys that will be an essential part of the next decade's astronomy. The sum of these surveys has the potential to be significantly greater than the contributions of the individual parts. As is detailed in this report, the combination of these surveys should give us multi-wavelength high-resolution images of galaxies and broadband data covering much of the stellar energy spectrum. These stellar and galactic data have the potential of yielding new insights into topics ranging from the formation history of the Milky Way to the mass of the neutrino. However, enabling the astronomy community to fully exploit this multi-instrument data set is a challenging technical task: for much of the science, we will need to combine the photometry across multiple wavelengths with varying spectral and spatial resolution. We identify some of the key science enabled by the combined surveys and the key technical challenges in achieving the synergies.