Enabling Early Transient Discovery in LSST via Difference Imaging with DECam
Abstract We present SLIDE , a pipeline that enables transient discovery in data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), using archival images from the Dark Energy Camera as templates for difference imaging. We apply this pipeline to the recently released Data Preview 1 (DP1; the first public release of Rubin commissioning data) and search for transients in the resulting difference images. The image subtraction, photometry extraction, and transient detection are all performed on the Rubin Science Platform. We demonstrate that SLIDE effectively extracts clean photometry by circumventing poor or missing LSST templates. We identified 29 previously unreported transients, 12 of which would not have been detected based on the DP1 DiaObject catalog. SLIDE will be especially useful for transient analysis in the early years of LSST, when template coverage will be largely incomplete or when templates may be contaminated by transients present at the time of acquisition. We present multiband light curves for a sample of known transients, along with new transient candidates identified through our search. Finally, we discuss the prospects of applying this pipeline during the main LSST survey. Our pipeline is broadly applicable and will support studies of all transients with slowly evolving phases.
Authors
- L. S. Kelvin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9395-4759)
- Fabrice Jammes
- B. Sánchez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8687-0669)
- Daniel Polin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7445-4724)
- A. Boucaud (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7387-2633)
- Krzysztof Suberlak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9589-1306)
- S. Dagoret-Campagne (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1131-7030)
- W. M. Wood‐Vasey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7113-1233)
- M. James Jee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5751-3697)
- Vincent Riot (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8239-3079)
- S. M. Kahn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4833-9137)
- Philip N. Daly
- C. Roucelle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9641-4552)
- Richard A. Shaw (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4058-5202)
- A. A. Plazas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2598-0514)
- Kaylee de Soto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9886-2834)
- Felipe Daruich
- Laurent Le Guillou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7178-8868)
- H. Drass (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7790-9971)
- Bruno Quint (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1557-3560)
- V. Ashley Villar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5814-4061)
- Erfan Nourbakhsh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3827-4691)
- Mostafa Lutfi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2866-3802)
- David Sanmartim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9238-9521)
- Orion Eiger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2933-391X)
- Anya E. Nugent (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2028-9329)
- T. Ribeiro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0138-1365)
- Oliver Wiecha
- Yize Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7937-6371)
- I. Kotov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2891-9310)
- Željko Ivezić (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5250-2633)
- M. May
- Andrew Bradshaw (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8998-6739)
- Alexander Gagliano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4906-8447)
- J. R. Peterson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5471-9609)
- Freddy Muñoz Arancibia
- Tim Jenness (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5982-167X)
- Guillem Megias Homar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6013-1131)
- Nima Sedaghat (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4734-2019)
- Gábor Kovács (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1779-775X)
- HyeYun Park (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7295-2743)
- J. Swinbank (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9445-1846)
- A. Alexov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7835-3963)
- Yijung Kang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5261-5803)
- J. A. Tyson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9242-8797)
- M. Moniez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8716-6561)
- C. Waters (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1989-4879)
- Peter Doherty
- Sandrine Thomas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9121-3436)
- L. P. Guy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0800-8755)
- Jacques Sebag
- Shuang Liang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9067-6829)
- K. Azalee Bostroem (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4924-444X)
- J. Cohen-Tanugi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9022-4232)
- É. Aubourg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5592-023X)
- Wouter van Reeven (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1431-9245)
- Farrukh Azfar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4052-2511)
- Charlotte Ward (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4557-6682)
- Patrick A. Hascall
- Alysha Shugart (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6778-7168)
- Ioana Sotuela Elorriaga (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6379-3365)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Published
- 2025-11-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae1837
- Primary Topic
- Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00