Cosmology SWG Task: Candidate Ranking

Ranking candidates is a critical step for the SWG as we will not be able to examine and even less follow all transients. Ranking is a vague term that is primarily intended to answer the question: "What follow-up observations should I request at this telescope right now?" It can be separated from immediate reaction to individual objects, but rather focuses on how to obtain the best SN sample at the end of the survey. A very useful property for this is for the ranking to be fully automatic, as this makes it possible to easily create mock surveys and compare the candidate selection between these. This task will heavily lean on algorithm development rather than daily monitoring work.

Some ranking can be straightforward - if we have transients brighter than the fixed SEDM magnitude threshold these are above the threshold for SEDM observations. Other steps are more complex. For example, of the candidates above the brightness limit for SEDM, should these be sorted according to brightness or according to whether they are expected to be fainter tomorrow (based on the current lightcurve fit)?

It is possible ranking should be combined with some amount of visual "scanning", such that someone has at least looked once at everything we wish to continue observing.

Possible tools:

• A nice way to visualize which transients are currently ranked for follow-up at which facility?

-- JakobNordin - 13 Nov 2017