Scientific Goals of the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS)

TL;DR

The Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS) aims to utilize Antarctica's unique conditions to observe the infrared universe, focusing on time-varying phenomena with a small telescope during winter darkness, enabling diverse astrophysical studies.

Contribution

This paper outlines the scientific goals, sensitivity calculations, and potential survey parameters for KISS, a novel infrared survey from Antarctica targeting dynamic cosmic events.

Findings

Sensitivity estimates for various observing conditions.

Sample survey parameters for different cadences and sensitivities.

Potential science applications including star formation and transient detection.

Abstract

The high Antarctic plateau provides exceptional conditions for conducting infrared observations of the cosmos on account of the cold, dry and stable atmosphere above the ice surface. This paper describes the scientific goals behind the first program to examine the time-varying universe in the infrared from Antarctica - the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS). This will employ a small (50 cm aperture) telescope to monitor the southern skies in the 2.4um Kdark window from China's Kunlun station at Dome A, on the summit of the Antarctic plateau, through the uninterrupted 4-month period of winter darkness. An earlier paper discussed optimisation of the Kdark filter for the best sensitivity (Li et al 2016). This paper examines the scientific program for KISS. We calculate the sensitivity of the camera for the extrema of observing conditions that will be encountered. We present the parameters for sample surveys that could then be carried out for a range of cadences and sensitivities. We then discuss several science programs that could be conducted with these capabilities, involving star formation, brown dwarfs and hot Jupiters, exoplanets around M dwarfs, the terminal phases of stellar evolution, discovering fast transients as part of multi-wavelength campaigns, embedded supernova searches, reverberation mapping of active galactic nuclei, gamma ray bursts and the detection of the cosmic infrared background. Accepted for publication in PASA, 04/08/16.