How will the AVO affect you?

Gerry Gilmore

IoA, Cambridge, UK

The AVO Context

• Exclusive groups [eg, Carnegie/Caltech in optical-IR; Aus in radio] evolve into public-access multi-national projects: VLA, ALMA, HST, CERN, ELT?

• Public Money open access• AVO intrinsically multinational: builds on the

inherently international internet/grid.• AVO exists since software is now a cost/design

driver for all major projects and archives• Applies the new eScience paradigm• But how will we live with this?

AVO: the big effect

• AVO will succeed if everyone gets more from it than their own input multipartner involvement an essential requirement:

YAY for IVOA

• Perhaps the biggest effect is sociological: international cooperation in AVO is critical.

• This raises lots of management issues.

• And many implications for users

The best effect of AVO

• CCDs revolutionised astronomy: with enhanced precision and accuracy at affordable cost.

• CCDs are the default choice.• AVO could be the software equivalent of

CCDs : essential, provided by professionals, better than any alternative.

• AVO success means it is used more than it is discussed

The AVO today

• Generic justification for public funding AVO is essential to allow effective public access to processed data longevity of research use

• This implies significant continuing support and development AVO career paths, AVO management structures…

• And decision making challenges: there is no single PI Institution/group; who decides?

• Where is AVO on the Schilizzi list?• We’ve never done this before! Though many

national-scale successes

One effect of AVO

• Where funding systems demand public access, or science needs more people [too much data, many possible applications, political

funding…] AVO is the viable response mechanism. Already much quoted!

• LHC-grid, human genome,… model

• Driving sociological change to Big Science

• Do we want this? Can we avoid it?

AVO: the big pluses

• It is timely: the grid must be good for more than faster spam…

• It is a strong community development mechanism, open to poorer countries [NB, this is not necessarily seen as a positive point]

• Enlarging and strengthening the international community strengthens all of astronomy: we start to repay society by skill training, astronomy moves away from being an expensive luxury

The effect of AVO: one example

• The current European political fashion is to expand high-technology support for less-rich countries YAY, YAY, YAY !!

• Providing effective access to state of the art data and tools, and relevant training, is our response: ergo AVO

• One effect of AVO will be to enlarge and strengthen the community, without requiring permanent migration of scientists

• Not necessarily considered a positive…

• This implies much more scientific competition…

IS AVO a free lunch for most?• If so, it will fail.• AVO must retain active participation by most

potential user communities if it is to be used and developed. How?

• Does this create a monster, and inhibit future individual creativity?

• Most great ideas, as for AVO, come from a few exceptional people (PIs): too rigid a structure prevents this in future

• BUT standards are essential for applications• And AVO is a very good idea.

AVO as the international standard

• Standards Imperialism is a risk

• But standards are essential, and can work: eg FITS, astrometric reference systems

• And local interfaces `adaptors’ do work

• A challenge: hardware can change rapidly; software is an integral, and is expensive.

• Is this a serious constraint on future development?

AVO Imperialism?

• A massive infrastructure demands applications (shuttle fleet ISS?; armies wars?)

• Will AVO drive funding agencies too far from PI-led, science-driven projects?

• This is a real risk, but not immediate: astronomy already decided to make this the `survey decade’: we need AVO to deliver the science products, and learn from experience.

The effect of AVO: another example

• Major investment in one technology leaves others unbalanced: there are now many 8-10m telescopes, but too few surveys

• Hence we are entering the `survey decade’• 318 papers on astroph with `survey’ in the title in

the last 5 months• HDF, 2dF, CDF, GOODS, SDSS, WMAP, CFH,

OGLE, 2MASS, radio, IR, molecular,…• Dramatic science advances!! But so far very little

real cross-wavelength science (modulo qso, grb,…), and all `point’ sources.

ISOCAM and SCUBA surveys: new tools for huge complex data sets and maps are already essential

Matching multi-wavelength data sets is possible only for a very expert large team: until AVO

A possible inverse effect

• Will AVO mean large consortia are no longer essential for multi-wavelength projects?

• This will `empower the individual’

• But may isolate the individual

• And limit science to range of astrophysics knowable by small groups

• Sociological/political reactions here…

An effect of AVO?

• No small research group will have the expertise to really understand the limitations of the datasets AVO makes available

• Will large expert data centres (CDS, IPAC,…) become even more necessary: how are these to be funded, if their role is international helpline support?

• Need they exist as entities? Linux model? Virtual institutes?

• Now look at a proposed example

A survey path

• WASP: wide angle survey for planets;

• WFCAM: UKIRT large survey, from 1/04;

• VISTA: UK-ESO IR survey, [plus VST 04]

• Eddington: ESA asteroseismology and planet finding mission

• GAIA: HST resolution all-sky imaging + astrometry

• Still points, but phase-space

Projects on this scale demand

GRID-AVO technologies, and

demand accumulating expertise. We

have no choice.

Their affordability is a real effect of

AVO on astronomy

An AVO effect

• Most large projects reinvent costly wheels [``not invented here’’ syndrome]

• Retaining the knowledge to manage very large projects implies continuity and structures, not `isolated’ PI-led teams

• The tension between infrastructures and creativity is always evolving

• Can AVO be the first distributed observatory?

The effect of AVO

• AVO will certainly democratise astronomy• Powerful tools can dominate powerpoint• AVO needs to empower, not limit• AVO will break the multi-wavelength access

barrier, and allow more complexity• There are sure to be serious errors from this!• Poor or inappropriately calibrated data can be

used unknowingly in a complex system.• This will be a huge challenge for referees.

AVO effects

• Truly allow multi-wavelength astronomy reduce conservatism, great for ALMA

• Access many more archives new science opportunities in discovery space

• Reduce the finance barrier empower the community, increase competition

• Perhaps reduce need for huge science collaborations?