Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V) Local Volume Mapper (LVM) is an ultra-wide integral field spectroscopic survey of the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds, and a sample of galaxies in the local volume. The LVM spatially resolved spectroscopy covers the bulk of the optical range (3600-9800 A) at medium spectral-resolution (R = 2200-5500), and maps the disks of these galaxies at high physical spatial resolution (< 1 pc in the MW and ~10 pc in the Magellanic Clouds). Observations are carried out with the LVM Instrument (LVM-I), a custom-built robotic telescope, instrument, and facility located at Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) in Chile. In this article we present a technical overview of the LVM project. We describe the hardware, the survey observing strategy, and the details of how science and calibration observations are carried out. We provide a high-level overview of the survey data flow, including the reduction and calibration of the LVM spectra, and the production of the main data products that are released by the project. We also present an assessment of the LVM data quality and instrumental stability based on science observations. The main goal of this article is to serve as a primer for LVM users, providing the technical information required for the adequate analysis, modeling, and interpretation of the LVM data.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Blanc, Guillermo A., Drory, Niv, Sánchez, Sebastián F., Konidaris, Nicholas P., Kreckel, Kathryn, Wong, Tony, Pellegrini, Eric W., Froning, Cynthia S., Herbst, Tom, Johnston, Evelyn J., Jones, Amy M., Katkov, Ivan Yu., Mejía-Narváez, Alfredo, Ramirez, Solange, Sánchez-Gallego, José, Wachter, Stefanie, Rix, Hans-Walter, Bizyaev, Dmitry, Cherinka, Brian, Congiu, Enrico, Cosens, Maren, Dias, Bruno, Donor, John, Egorov, Oleg, Egorova, Evgeniya, Häberle, Maximilian, Ibarra, Hector, Long, Knox S., Méndez-Delgado, José Eduardo, Singh, Amrita, Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge K., Berg, Michelle, Saguer, Mar Canal i, Cioni, Maria-Rosa, Cortés-Muñoz, Hugo, Cuellar, Rodrigo, de Almeida, Florence, Zermeño, Rodolfo de J., Demianenko, Mariia, García, Pablo, Glover, Simon C. O., Greve, Hannah, Hilder, Thomas, Hoy, Kevin, Li, Jing, Klessen, Ralf S., Krishnarao, Dhanesh, Kumari, Nimisha, Lambert, Sorya, Liang, Fu-Heng, Sánchez, Aurora Mata, Minniti, Dante, Nair, Aparna, Popa, Silvia Anastasia, Sankrit, Ravi, Sattler, Natascha, Schaible, Anna Lena, Stringfellow, Guy, Herrera, Luciano Vargas, Durango, Monica Alejandra Villa, Watkins, Elizabeth Jayne, Kollmeier, Juna A.
Institution: Carnegie Observatories
Language: English
Subfield: Instrumentation
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Science Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Yale University, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Ohio State University, California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New Mexico State University, Space Telescope Science Institute, Flatiron Health, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, University of Toronto, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Yunnan University, Nanjing University, China National Textile and Apparel Council, Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Colorado Boulder, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Leibniz-Gemeinschaft, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences
OpenAlex ID: W7223699051