PHOTOMETRIC RESPONSE FUNCTIONS OF THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY IMAGER

The monochromatic illumination system is constructed to carry out in situ measurements of the response function of the mosaicked CCD imager used in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The system is outlined and the results of the measurements, mostly during the first six years of the SDSS, are described. We present the reference response functions for the five color passbands derived from these measurements, and discuss column-to-column variations and variations in time, and also their effects on photometry. We also discuss the effect arising from various, slightly different response functions of the associated detector systems that were used to give SDSS photometry. We show that the calibration procedures of SDSS remove these variations reasonably well with the resulting final errors from variant response functions being unlikely to be larger than 0.01 mag for g, r, i, and z bands over the entire duration of the survey. The considerable aging effect is uncovered in the u band, the response function showing a 30% decrease in the throughput in the short wavelength side during the survey years, which potentially causes a systematic error in photometry. The aging effect is consistent with variation of the instrumental sensitivity in the u band, which is calibrated out. The expected color variation is consistent with measured color variation in the catalog of repeated photometry. The color variation is Delta(u - g) similar to 0.01 for most stars, and at most Delta(u - g) similar to 0.02 mag for those with extreme colors. We verified in the final catalog that no systematic variations in excess of 0.01 mag are detected in the photometry which can be ascribed to aging and/or seasonal effects except for the secular u - g color variation for stars with extreme colors.