Rubin / LSST data right holder (PI) selection - FY2025 Supplemental Call
October 24th, 2025 (Subaru SAC)
Background
- Rubin Observatory / LSST is a wide field optical imaging survey led by the USA with the dedicated telescope located at Chile, science pipeline software and science platform as a data analysis environment. LSST is scheduled to start its survey operation from 2025. A few months of science commissioning observations are also planned just before that.
- NAOJ has offered in-kind contributions to LSST operation, including 50 Subaru nights over 13 years, software development and computing resources. In return, a certain number of Japanese PIs can be assigned. For each PI, 4 junior associates (JA; students, postdocs, and technical staff) can be assigned. Some of PIs available to Japan will be assigned to the persons who will directly work for the in-kind contribution but the rest will be selected by an open call within the Japanese community. In 2023 November, we issued a call for proposals to select PIs and JAs, and selected 16 PIs and 4 JAs. There are open slots of more than 10 PIs and 20 JAs, which will be filled by this supplemental call.
- This document describes the procedure on how to select open-call Japanese PIs and JAs.
Who can apply?
- All persons who are primarily affiliated with Japanese institutions [Note#1] and have direct access to Subaru. Applicants are required to execute their own scientific research using LSST data and also contribute to the Japanese community, for example, as a mentor of Rubin/LSST data through workshops or promote Japanese activity by providing derived data products (see below). Annual report will be required.
- Note#1: For faculty and postdocs, "Primary affiliated" means their employers are paying at least 50% of their salary for employment.
- In this call, proposals for both PIs and JAs are solicited. Faculty members (assistant prof., associate prof., professor, etc.) are supposed to apply for PIs. Postdocs and students are supposed to apply for JAs, and can propose independent research projects that are not necessarily associated with research projects of any PIs or PI applicants. Individual applicants can judge whether they apply for PI or JA. Submitting or participating in multiple proposals is not allowed as individuals will be selected as data right holders. JAs to be selected by accepted PIs need not submit proposals, nor need they participate in the PI's proposals.
What need to be submitted:
- Cover page (web form)
- Title of the proposal, name / institution / contact address of applicant, PI/JA, scientific category, abstract
- Research plan using LSST data
- Plan for contribution to the Japanese community including delivery of derived data products and target lists (see http://ls.st/RDO-013)
- Format: Free format, the maximum 2 pages (PDF file) including both the research plan and the plan for contribution to the Japanese community. For a group proposal submission, the maximum 3 pages.
- Language: Either Japanese or English is accepted.
- Submission method: NINS Open Use System (NOUS)
- Deadline: 2025 December 2 (Tue) 12:00 (noon) [JST]
- Group proposal submission
- A group of persons with a similar scientific interest may want to submit a single proposal as one group (for PIs only). This kind of proposal will also be reviewed. The justification of the requested number of PIs and roles of individual PIs should be included. The approved number of PIs can be smaller than the requested number of PIs. In that case, each group will determine the individuals who become PIs.
How long I can hold LSST data right:
- The data right will be valid nominally over 3 years. Since this call is a supplemental call of 2023 November call, the data right will be valid for the same period as the original call, until 2027 September. In order to extend the LSST familiar community refresh of members is important. On the other hand, the continuation of research is also important (PIs can join science collaboration). So every 3 years, data rights holders will be re-selected.
- Data rights holders who move out from Japanese institutes will lose their data rights through the Japanese program. However, there is a grace period of two years that starts from the time of the change (but does not exceed the initial 3 years) if the new institute is in one of the countries that are already eligible for data rights.
Who will review the proposal:
- The selection committee nominated by Subaru SAC will review proposals. Committee members will cover a wide research area. The balance of research field, gender, age, region etc will be considered. Proposals for PIs might be accepted as JAs (or vice versa) depending on the availability.
JA selection process:
- Each PI is accompanied with 4 JA slots. We will give each selected PI priority to assign up to a maximum of 3 JAs (students and/or postdocs). The rest of available JAs will be filled with open-call applicants.
Data rights:
- Given the data rate ~20TB/night, interacting with LSST data using your own personal resources is not practical. "The term data rights is defined as the permission to work with and publish results based on proprietary LSST data, and the term data access as the ability to access LSST data and services through the Rubin Observatory DACs." (DPOL-302; https://ls.st/rdo-013). All released LSST data will be verified by quality assessment (QA) metrics. Rubin Science Platform provides a software framework for astronomical research including query, visualization, and analysis tools, plus the associated computational, storage, and communications infrastructure.
- The real-time alert stream is public, however, access to the LSST alert database will be restricted to the data rights holder. The alert broker may have different restrictions.
- After a proprietary period of 2 years, all the LSST data in a Data Release become public except for some cases. Rubin Observatory plans to explore the technical feasibility of maintaining data accessibility for reproducibility purposes beyond the two-year proprietary period, likely at reduced service levels.
For the period of data right for this call, the following Data Previews and Data Release are expected to be available (Please refer to Monthly Updates | Rubin Observatory (lsst.org) for the latest information). The information below may be updated soon.
- Data Preview 0 (DP0) is based on simulated LSST-like data and is being released in three phases (most recently, DP0.2), with DP0.3 expected by Sep 2023.
- Data Preview 1 (DP1) will be based on data from the LSSTCam obtained during a period of a few days after System First Light and is expected by Apr 2025.
- Data Preview 2 (DP2) will serve a full consistent reprocessing of all science-grade LSSTCam images obtained before survey operations, and is expected by Mar 2026.
- Data Release 1 (DR1) will be based on the first 6 months of survey operations and is expected by Nov 2026.
Contact:
- rubin_consult _AT_ ml.nao.ac.jp