<tt>Sorcha</tt>: Optimized Solar System Ephemeris Generation
Abstract Sorcha is a solar system survey simulator built for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) and future large-scale wide-field surveys. Over the 10 yr survey, the LSST is expected to collect roughly a billion observations of minor planets. The task of a solar system survey simulator is to take a set of input objects (described by orbits and physical properties) and determine what a real or hypothetical survey would have discovered. Existing survey simulators have a computational bottleneck in determining which input objects lie in each survey field, making them infeasible for LSST data scales. Sorcha can swiftly, efficiently, and accurately calculate the on-sky positions for sets of millions of input orbits and surveys with millions of visits, identifying which exposures these objects cross, in order for later stages of the software to make detailed estimates of the apparent magnitude and detectability of those input small bodies. In this paper, we provide the full details of the algorithm and software behind Sorcha ’s ephemeris generator. Like many of Sorcha ’s components, its ephemeris generator can be easily used for other surveys.
Authors
- Samuel Cornwall (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0672-5104)
- Siegfried Eggl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1398-6302)
- Megan E. Schwamb (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4365-1455)
- Kevin J. Napier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4827-5049)
- Shantanu P. Naidu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4439-7014)
- Jeremy Kubica (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2281-7031)
- Stephanie R. Merritt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5930-2829)
- Maxine West (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3171-3118)
- Mario Jurić (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1996-9252)
- J Murtagh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9505-1131)
- G. Fedorets (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8418-4809)
- Matthew J. Holman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1139-4880)
- Pedro H. Bernardinelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0743-9422)
- Colin Orion Chandler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7335-1715)
- Drew Oldag
- Jacob A. Kurlander (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-5452-0671)
- Kathleen Kiker
Institutions
- Queen's University Belfast (GB)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- University of Turku (FI)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Institute of Astronomy (RU)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
- National Center for Supercomputing Applications (US)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astronomical Journal
- Published
- 2025-07-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ade435
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.77
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Smithsonian Institution
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Washington Research Foundation
- University of Washington
- Department for the Economy
- European Commission
- Nuclear Safety and Security Commission
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Science and Technology Facilities Council
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory