A Quasar Microlensing Light Curve Generator for LSST
  We present a tool to generate mock quasar microlensing light curves and
sample them according to any observing strategy. An updated treatment of the
fixed and random velocity components of observer, lens, and source is used,
together with a proper alignment with the external shear defining the
magnification map caustic orientation. Our tool produces quantitative results
on high magnification events and caustic crossings, which we use to study three
lensed quasars known to display microlensing, viz. RX J1131-1231, HE 0230-2130,
and Q 2237+0305, as they would be monitored by The Rubin Observatory Legacy
Survey of Space and Time (LSST). We conclude that depending on the location on
the sky, the lens and source redshift, and the caustic network density, the
microlensing variability may deviate significantly than the expected
$\sim$20-year average time scale (Mosquera & Kochanek 2011, arXiv:1104.2356).
We estimate that $\sim300$ high magnification events with $\Delta$mag$>1$ mag
could potentially be observed by LSST each year. The duration of the majority
of high magnification events is between 10 and 100 days, requiring a very high
cadence to capture and resolve them. Uniform LSST observing strategies perform
the best in recovering microlensing high magnification events. Our web tool can
be extended to any instrument and observing strategy, and is freely available
as a service at http://gerlumph.swin.edu.au/tools/lsst_generator/, along with
all the related code.
