500 - Tools for Data Validation and Analysis

The preparation of the Gaia archive before its publication requires a careful, detailed and in-depth validation of its contents. The scientific and statistical challenge of this task on a one-billion dataset containing a wide variety of data (astrometric, photometric, spectrophotometric, spectroscopic, …) is daunting, and would be impossible without tools adapted to work on such a massive and data-diverse archive. This work package aims to produce such tools, based on the actual validation needs and on the characteristics of the archive system, thus making them as efficient as possible. Furthermore, the validation process will rely on methods and tools that can also be used, with little or no adaptation, for the scientific analysis of the catalogue. Therefore, this work package, in connection with WP 500, will also produce tools for the use of the scientific community in its analysis of the Gaia data.