PS2: Managing the next step in the Pan-STARRS wide field survey system

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) is unique among the existing or planned major ground-based optical survey systems as the only "distributed aperture" system. The concept of increasing system \'etendue by replicating small telescopes and digital cameras presents both management opportunities and challenges. The focus in this paper is on management lessons learned from PS1, and how those have been used to form the management plan for PS2. The management plan components emphasized here include technical development, financial and schedule planning, and critical path and risk management. Finally, the status and schedule for PS2 are presented.Comment: Paper presented at SPIE 2012 Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, to be published in conference proceedings (8449-28

Signatures of Precocious Unification in Orbiting Detectors

It has been conjectured that the string and unification scales may be substantially lower than previously believed, perhaps a few TeV. In scenarios of this type, orbiting detectors such OWL or AIRWATCH can observe spectacular phenomena at trans-GZK energies. We explore measurable signatures of the hypothesis that trans-GZK air showeres (``anomalous showers'') are originated by strongly interacting neutrinos. The results of a MC simulation of such air showers is described. A distinction between proton induced and ``anomalous'' showers becomes possible once a substantial sample of trans-GZK showers will be available.Comment: LaTeX 2e, 14 pages, 5 figures. Revised and expanded version: MC rerun, figures redrawn, text revised and expande

trans-GZK Cosmic Rays: Strings, Black Holes, Neutrinos, or All Three?

We review the scenario in which ``strongly interacting neutrinos'' are responsible for inducing airshowers with inferred energies $E > 8\times10^{19}$ eV. This possibility arises naturally in string excitation models having a unification scale effectively decoupled from the Planck scale. We then show that phenomenological quantum gravity considerations reveal an equivalency of ``mini-black hole'' and strongly interacting neutrino pictures for explaining trans-GZK events. This equivalence can be exploited to predict single particle inclusive distributions. The resulting observable consequences in airshower development are studied using the Adaptive Longitudinal Profile Shower (ALPS) simulation.Comment: Talk presented at Cosmic Ray International Seminar (CRIS), Catania, Sicily, 2004; 6 pages, 6 figure

Brown Dwarfs in Young Moving Groups from Pan-STARRS1. I. AB Doradus

Substellar members of young ($\lesssim$150 Myr) moving groups are valuable benchmarks to empirically define brown dwarf evolution with age and to study the low-mass end of the initial mass function. We have combined Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) proper motions with optical$-$IR photometry from PS1, 2MASS and $\textit{WISE}$ to search for substellar members of the AB Dor Moving Group within $\approx$50 pc and with spectral types of late-M to early-L, corresponding to masses down to $\approx$30 M$_{Jup}$ at the age of the group ($\approx$125 Myr). Including both photometry and proper motions allows us to better select candidates by excluding field dwarfs whose colors are similar to young AB~Dor Moving Group members. Our near-IR spectroscopy has identified six ultracool dwarfs (M6$-$L4; $\approx$30$-$100 M$_{Jup}$) with intermediate surface gravities (INT-G) as candidate members of the AB Dor Moving Group. We find another two candidate members with spectra showing hints of youth but consistent with field gravities. We also find four field brown dwarfs unassociated with the AB Dor Moving Group, three of which have INT-G gravity classification. While signatures of youth are present in the spectra of our $\approx$125 Myr objects, neither their $J-K$ nor $W1-W2$ colors are significantly redder than field dwarfs with the same spectral types, unlike younger ultracool dwarfs. We also determined PS1 parallaxes for eight of our candidates and one previously identified AB Dor Moving Group candidate. Although radial velocities (and parallaxes, for some) are still needed to fully assess membership, these new objects provide valuable insight into the spectral characteristics and evolution of young brown dwarfs.Comment: ApJ, accepte