{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp05_external_evaluation_20260803","source_assessment_id":"negative_space_design__astronomy_astrophysics:P5:v0","cell_id":"negative_space_design__astronomy_astrophysics","search_queries":["site:desi.lbl.gov sky fibers 40 per petal sky subtraction spectroscopy","DESI sky fibers background subtraction official technical paper sky locations focal plane","Subaru PFS sky fibers distributed sky subtraction design","SDSS sky fibers 32 per plate sky subtraction official","site:desidatamodel.readthedocs.io sky fibers 40 per petal sky model","DESI sky subtraction 40 sky fibers per petal primary paper","DESI target selection sky locations blank sky uniformly distributed fibers","fiber spectroscopy sky subtraction dedicated sky fibers nod and shuffle comparison primary research","BLS Occupational Employment Wage Statistics astronomers median annual wage May 2025","BLS software developers median wage May 2025 official","DESI public data release raw data access official fiberassign sky spectra DR1","SDSS raw spectroscopic data sky fibers public data access official","\"Overview of the Instrumentation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument\" arxiv","site:arxiv.org/abs DESI instrumentation 40 sky fibers per petal","\"groups of 50 fibers\" \"sky assignment\" DESI"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"Sky Calibration — SDSS DR19","publisher":"Sloan Digital Sky Survey","url":"https://www.sdss.org/dr19/targeting/fps/sky/","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"Undated DR19 documentation","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Atmospheric spectral features contaminate science spectra, vary with location and time, and must be measured contemporaneously.","Each SDSS design assigns a fraction of fibers to catalog-screened empty sky and seeks uniform distribution.","For faint extragalactic BOSS observations, 20% of fibers are reserved for sky observations.","Source-exclusion criteria and fallback sky-location rules are already operationalized."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"PFS Observations — Proposal and Observation Preparations","publisher":"Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan","url":"https://subarutelescope.org/Instruments/PFS/observations.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2026 S26B documentation","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["PFS uses sky fibers for sky subtraction.","Time-variable fiber throughput can cause over- or under-subtraction of sky lines in science fibers.","The observatory is actively working to understand and mitigate this problem.","PFS target allocation, filler priority, data access, and proposal review are governed by observatory procedures."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"PFS Current Status","publisher":"Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan","url":"https://subarutelescope.org/Instruments/PFS/status.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_ORGANIZATION_DATA","publication_date":"2026 status documentation","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["A fraction of PFS fibers exhibit significant sky-line over- or under-subtraction, probably related to configuration-dependent throughput changes.","Scattered light and bright neighboring fibers affect extraction.","The PFS team is investigating sky-subtraction improvements.","Detector maps, fiber positioning, repeated exposures, and throughput measurements provide implementation-relevant metadata and checks."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Overview of the Instrumentation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument","publisher":"The Astronomical Journal / American Astronomical Society","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.10939","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2022-10-21","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["DESI operates 5,020 robotic fibers divided among ten petals and includes fiber assignment and spectroscopic processing systems.","DESI requires minimum calibration densities of 40 sky fibers per petal and distributes sky assignments across focal-plane and detector groupings.","Low-priority science targets can be replaced to meet sky and standard-star calibration requirements.","DESI demonstrates that protected, distributed, simultaneous blank-sky fibers are an implemented survey practice rather than a new intervention."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"On-sky Tests of Sky-subtraction Methods for Fiber-fed Spectrographs","publisher":"SPIE proceedings / arXiv","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.06142","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2016-09-20","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Simultaneous dedicated sky fibers are a recognized sky-subtraction strategy whose required number depends on wavelength, field size, and accuracy requirements.","Fiber response and scattered light must be corrected before using sky fibers.","On-sky tests compared mean-sky, closest-sky, dual-stare, and cross-beam-switching methods.","Dual-stare and cross-beam-switching achieved sub-percent performance in tested cases, providing strong comparators."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"Sky Subtraction at the Poisson Limit with Fibre-optic Multi-object Spectroscopy","publisher":"Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society / arXiv","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1007.0648","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2010-07-05","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Dedicated sky-fiber subtraction can reach a systematic noise floor in long integrations.","Nod-and-shuffle reduces some systematics but incurs exposure-time and multiplex penalties.","PCA correction applied to dedicated-sky-fiber observations can suppress systematic residuals and outperform nod-and-shuffle in studied regimes.","The paper quantifies target-multiplex and observing-efficiency tradeoffs relevant to the proposal's opportunity cost."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"DR19 Get Data","publisher":"Sloan Digital Sky Survey","url":"https://sdss.org/dr19/data_access/get_data/","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"2025 DR19 documentation","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["SDSS provides public programmatic and bulk access to spectroscopic catalogs and spectra.","Per-object files can include individual exposures contributing to a coadd.","Public optical spectra are organized by field or plate, date, and catalog or fiber identifier, supporting a bounded retrospective study."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"National Employment and Wage Data by Occupation, May 2025","publisher":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics","url":"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm?mod=article_inline","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2026","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["The May 2025 national mean annual wage for astronomers was $132,920, supplying an official labor-cost anchor.","The wage table supports resource-equivalent estimates but does not include institutional overhead, computing, telescope time, or opportunity cost."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Official SDSS documentation says atmospheric features vary spatially and temporally and reserves substantial simultaneous blank-sky capacity; current Subaru documentation reports actual sky-line over- and under-subtraction associated with fiber throughput, plus scattered-light and neighboring-fiber effects. Primary studies show systematic residual floors and material differences among subtraction strategies. The problem visibly exists and matters most for faint spectra, although its prevalence and scientific consequence for any particular instrument or feature remain unquantified.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S5","S6"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"SDSS, DESI, and Subaru/PFS are identifiable adopters and operational authorities. They already allocate fibers, impose calibration rules, maintain pipelines, and investigate subtraction failures. This demonstrates strong demand for sky calibration generally. No source expresses demand specifically for a permanently held-out witness subset or for branding existing sky-fiber allocation as a witness lattice.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"ESTABLISHED_PRACTICE","closest_analogues":[{"name":"SDSS designed blank-sky fiber allocation","similarity":"Near-exact match: each design protects a fraction of fibers for catalog-screened empty sky, distributes them across the field, observes them simultaneously, and uses them to measure spatially and temporally varying sky contamination.","remaining_difference":"The documentation does not state that a prespecified subset is withheld from model fitting for independent validation or that displaced targets are tracked as a formal audit output.","source_ids":["S1"]},{"name":"DESI minimum and spatially distributed sky-fiber requirements","similarity":"Near-exact match: DESI mandates sky fibers per petal, distributes them across focal-plane and detector groupings, and can replace low-priority science targets to satisfy calibration minima.","remaining_difference":"The located source does not describe a permanently held-out sky-fiber test set or a prospective decision threshold based on its residuals.","source_ids":["S4"]},{"name":"PFS sky-fiber subtraction and commissioning diagnostics","similarity":"PFS already uses simultaneous sky fibers, assesses subtraction with sky spectra, records configuration-dependent throughput behavior, and is actively developing mitigations.","remaining_difference":"The sources do not establish a stratified train/holdout protocol or an auditable deferred-target queue tied to sky-witness placement.","source_ids":["S2","S3"]},{"name":"Dedicated-sky, nearest-sky, nodding, cross-beam, and PCA research","similarity":"Published on-sky research already compares dedicated simultaneous sky fibers with the proposal's named rivals and evaluates residual spectra on blank-sky observations.","remaining_difference":"The studies do not clearly establish the proposal's exact operational combination of locked distributed placement, prespecified held-out witnesses, contamination reclassification, and target-opportunity accounting.","source_ids":["S5","S6"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"At fixed total calibration-fiber and science-target budgets, prespecifying a focal-plane- and detector-stratified subset of simultaneous blank-sky fibers that is never used to fit or tune the background model will produce a more honest and decision-useful estimate of out-of-sample subtraction error than current all-sky fitting or non-prespecified quality checks. It is falsified if leakage-free residual estimates, faint-feature stability, or prospective model-selection decisions do not improve, or if the authorized allocation body rejects the recorded target cost. The protected distributed blank-sky lattice itself is not distinctive.","confidence":"HIGH"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Existing SDSS, DESI, and PFS operations demonstrate technical feasibility for catalog-screened blank positions, distributed fiber assignment, simultaneous collection, throughput and position checks, and pipeline subtraction. Public SDSS spectra and exposure-level products make a read-only retrospective test plausible. Remaining workflow gaps are a frozen holdout protocol, leakage controls, contamination adjudication independent of desired results, and an explicit target-cost acceptance rule. Public-data reuse presents low legal risk subject to archive terms and acknowledgment. A prospective change still requires observatory allocation and configuration authority; no source confirms that a PI alone can displace approved targets. Safety risk is principally scientific-integrity harm from contaminated witnesses, model leakage, or concealed target loss, not physical harm.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S7"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"Sky residuals can obscure or mimic faint features, and major surveys devote substantial multiplex capacity to controlling them; realized scientific impact for the incremental holdout feature is unmeasured.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S6"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":4,"rationale":"Multiple observatories have operational calibration programs and PFS is actively investigating subtraction problems, but no stakeholder explicitly requests the remaining held-out-validation feature.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":2,"rationale":"Leakage-free held-out validation could improve error estimation and model selection, but no located evidence shows better target-spectrum outcomes than existing QA, PCA, nodding, or cross-beam methods.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S6"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":1,"rationale":"Protected, distributed, catalog-screened simultaneous blank-sky fibers with explicit science-target displacement are established practice; only the prespecified holdout and audit combination remains plausibly contrastive.","source_ids":["S1","S4","S5"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":5,"rationale":"Required hardware, assignment systems, metadata, sky spectra, and reduction workflows already exist in multiple operational instruments.","source_ids":["S1","S3","S4","S7"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"Observatories visibly control calibration allocation and pipelines, and a retrospective analysis needs no live change; prospective displacement of approved targets requires an identified but not yet consenting allocation authority.","source_ids":["S2","S4"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"Public spectra, catalogs, and individual-exposure products support a small retrospective analysis, though the exact raw products, provenance fields, and executable production pipeline needed for a leakage-free rerun were not verified configuration by configuration.","source_ids":["S7"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":3,"rationale":"Independent witnesses could catch subtraction failures before faint-feature claims propagate, with reversible read-only analysis; benefit beyond current calibration QA is not demonstrated.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S6"]},"scalability":{"score":4,"rationale":"The method maps to many fiber-fed multiplexed instruments, but suitable witness density, contamination rules, detector mapping, and opportunity cost are instrument- and program-specific.","source_ids":["S1","S4","S5"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"A leakage-controlled retrospective study of no more than six public SDSS configurations, including data engineering, frozen analysis code, three comparators, blinded feature checks, and a short reproducibility report.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Eight to sixteen person-weeks split among an astronomer, reduction-pipeline specialist, and statistical reviewer.","Loaded labor is approximated at roughly 1.6–2.2 times salary; BLS astronomer mean pay is an anchor, not a project quote.","Existing public data and institutional compute are used; no observing time or new hardware is purchased."],"source_ids":["S7","S8"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Instrument-specific design work to add prespecified train/holdout labels, configuration-lock rules, provenance, contamination flags, QA reports, and allocation-impact reporting to an existing multiplexed-spectroscopy stack.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Existing positioners, catalog services, raw-data systems, and reduction pipeline are reused.","Approximately 0.25–0.75 staff-year across instrument science, software, operations, and review.","No hardware modification, instrument downtime, or telescope-night charge is included."],"source_ids":["S1","S3","S4","S8"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Authorized prospective commissioning across several configurations, including configuration reviews, observing support, independent QA, pipeline validation, and opportunity-cost accounting.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Existing scheduled calibration or commissioning time is available.","The band includes staff effort and resource-equivalent observing support but not construction of a spectrograph.","Loss of science-target assignments remains modest; a high-value missed-target program could exceed this band."],"source_ids":["S2","S4","S8"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Annual maintenance of witness-selection catalogs and rules, pipeline monitoring, contamination review, release documentation, and periodic allocation-cost audit for one instrument.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Approximately 0.2–0.6 recurring staff-year distributed across operations, software, and instrument science.","Compute and storage are incremental to an existing archive and reduction facility.","The estimate excludes the scientific value of displaced targets and major reprocessing campaigns."],"source_ids":["S1","S2","S7","S8"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"Official operational documentation and primary on-sky research directly document sky-subtraction contamination, systematic residuals, and current failures.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S5","S6"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"SDSS, DESI, and Subaru/PFS are identifiable operators with fiber-assignment, calibration, pipeline, and proposal authority; PFS explicitly reports ongoing mitigation work.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"Although the lattice is established practice, prespecified leakage-free held-out witnesses at a fixed fiber budget form a narrow falsifiable incremental claim.","source_ids":["S1","S4","S5","S6"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"No more than six public configurations can be tested retrospectively with frozen rules, equal-budget comparators, prespecified endpoints, and explicit stop conditions.","source_ids":["S7"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"The next step is read-only and reversible. Prospective displacement is expressly excluded until observatory authorization; scientific-integrity risks can be bounded through frozen rules, provenance, blinding, and contamination flags.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S7"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The four bands state bounded scopes and assumptions and use official wage data as a labor anchor, while openly retaining low confidence for telescope-time and opportunity-cost components.","source_ids":["S8"]}},"next_evidence_step":"Using no more than six public SDSS configurations with at least 60 valid sky fibers each, preregister source-exclusion, throughput, detector-region, wavelength, contamination, and rejection rules before inspecting residuals. Within each configuration, stratify sky fibers by focal-plane and detector coordinates and lock 20% as holdouts. Compare at equal fitting-fiber count: (A) the production-style sky model, (B) nearest-sky interpolation, and (C) the strongest executable PCA or robust-ensemble rival. Never use holdouts for tuning. Primary endpoints are robust RMS and bias in continuum and declared sky-line windows on holdouts; secondary endpoints are calibration of predicted uncertainty, stability of prespecified faint features under valid reductions, contamination-detection rate, and the number and priority of science targets a corresponding prospective allocation would displace. Falsify the incremental claim if the held-out protocol does not change model ranking or error calibration materially, if no rival is improved on, if results are dominated by contaminated or unrepresentative witnesses, or if the prospective target cost exceeds a threshold set in advance by the allocation authority. Stop before analysis if exposure-level spectra, sky labels, fiber status, detector mapping, or an independently executable model are unavailable.","blocking_evidence":["No located adopter statement requests a prespecified held-out sky-fiber subset; expressed need concerns sky subtraction generally.","No leakage-free retrospective result demonstrates that the remaining holdout feature improves residual prediction, faint-feature stability, or operational model choice.","No authorized allocation body has supplied an acceptable target-displacement threshold for a prospective test.","The exact completeness of public exposure-level metadata, raw inputs, contamination labels, and executable production code has not been verified for the proposed six configurations.","The eight-source search cannot measure world novelty, patentability, freedom to operate, market size, or realized impact."],"research_disposition":"KNOWN_PRACTICE_DIFFUSION","world_novelty_boundary":"World novelty is unmeasured. The search establishes only that the proposal's central protected, distributed, simultaneous blank-sky-fiber intervention and its target-allocation tradeoff are established in SDSS, DESI, PFS, and prior research. It does not establish whether the narrow combination of a prespecified leakage-free holdout subset, contamination reclassification, and explicit deferred-target audit has appeared anywhere else. Patentability, freedom to operate, market size, and realized impact were not assessed.","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_version":0,"controller_recommendation":{"action":"STOP_DIFFUSION","repairable":false,"material_progress_observed":true,"progress_targets":["Reframe any future work around the narrow leakage-free held-out-validation claim, not around distributed simultaneous blank-sky fibers.","Complete the six-configuration equal-budget retrospective comparison and publish frozen selection, contamination, and residual metrics.","Obtain a written target-displacement threshold and prospective-test authority from an observatory allocation body before any live configuration change.","Document whether current SDSS, DESI, and PFS production QA already performs equivalent out-of-sample sky-fiber validation."],"reason":"The core proposal substantially reproduces established operational practice: SDSS and DESI deliberately reserve, protect, distribute, and observe blank-sky fibers simultaneously, including displacement of lower-priority science targets. PFS likewise uses sky fibers and is actively diagnosing subtraction failures. The only plausible incremental contribution is a narrow held-out-validation and audit protocol, for which advantage and stakeholder pull are not yet demonstrated; the proposal should therefore stop as an innovation claim and be treated as diffusion or quality-improvement work."},"proposal_index":5}