SunPhot: Preparations for an upcoming quasar variability survey with the International Liquid Mirror Telescope

TL;DR

SunPhot is a Python pipeline developed to extract high-cadence quasar light curves from ILMT images, aiming to enable a variability survey that could calibrate quasars as cosmic distance indicators.

Contribution

This paper introduces SunPhot, a new photometric pipeline designed for the ILMT, facilitating quasar variability studies with high precision and cadence.

Findings

SunPhot v.2.1 is operational.

Preparations for the ILMT quasar survey are underway.

The pipeline enables high-quality light curve extraction.

Abstract

Recent research suggests a correlation between the variability and intrinsic brightness of quasars. If calibrated, this could lead to the use of quasars on the cosmic distance ladder, but this work is currently limited by lack of quasar light curve data with high cadence and precision. The Python photometric data pipeline SunPhot is being developed as part of preparations for an upcoming quasar variability survey with the International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT). SunPhot uses aperture photometry to directly extract light curves for a catalogue of sources from calibrated ILMT images. SunPhot v.2.1 is operational, but the project is awaiting completion of ILMT commissioning.