SDSS-III: MASSIVE SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEYS OF THE DISTANT UNIVERSE, THE MILKY WAY, AND EXTRA-SOLAR PLANETARY SYSTEMS

Journal Article · Thu Sep 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/142/3/72· OSTI ID:21582976

Eisenstein, Daniel J ^[1]; Weinberg, David H ^[2]; Agol, Eric; Anderson, Scott F ^[3]; Aihara, Hiroaki ^[4]; Allende Prieto, Carlos ^[5]; Arns, James A ^[6]; Aubourg, Eric ^[7]; Bailey, Stephen ^[8]; Balbinot, Eduardo ^[9]; Barkhouser, Robert ^[10]; Beers, Timothy C ^[11]; Berlind, Andreas A ^[12]; Bickerton, Steven J ^[13]; Bizyaev, Dmitry ^[14]; Blanton, Michael R ^[15]; Bochanski, John J ^[16]; Bolton, Adam S ^[17]

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1. Steward Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)
2. Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
3. Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States)
4. Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8583 (Japan)
5. Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)
6. Kaiser Optical Systems, Ann Arbor, MI 48103 (United States)
7. Astroparticule et Cosmologie (APC), Universite Paris-Diderot, 75205 Paris Cedex 13 (France)
8. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
9. Instituto de Fisica, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS 91501-970 (Brazil)
10. Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
11. Department of Physics and Astronomy and JINA: Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, Michigan State University, E. Lansing, MI 48824 (United States)
12. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States)
13. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
14. Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States)
15. Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, New York, NY 10003 (United States)
16. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
17. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States)

Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. In keeping with SDSS tradition, SDSS-III will provide regular public releases of all its data, beginning with SDSS Data Release 8 (DR8), which was made public in 2011 January and includes SDSS-I and SDSS-II images and spectra reprocessed with the latest pipelines and calibrations produced for the SDSS-III investigations. This paper presents an overview of the four surveys that comprise SDSS-III. The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Ly{alpha} forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the baryon acoustic oscillation feature of large-scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z < 0.7 and at z {approx} 2.5. SEGUE-2, an already completed SDSS-III survey that is the continuation of the SDSS-II Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE), measured medium-resolution (R = {lambda}/{Delta}{lambda} {approx} 1800) optical spectra of 118,000 stars in a variety of target categories, probing chemical evolution, stellar kinematics and substructure, and the mass profile of the dark matter halo from the solar neighborhood to distances of 100 kpc. APOGEE, the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, will obtain high-resolution (R {approx} 30,000), high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N {>=} 100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51 {mu}m < {lambda} < 1.70 {mu}m) spectra of 10{sup 5} evolved, late-type stars, measuring separate abundances for {approx}15 elements per star and creating the first high-precision spectroscopic survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge, bar, disks, halo) with a uniform set of stellar tracers and spectral diagnostics. The Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS) will monitor radial velocities of more than 8000 FGK stars with the sensitivity and cadence (10-40 m s{sup -1}, {approx}24 visits per star) needed to detect giant planets with periods up to two years, providing an unprecedented data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant planet systems. As of 2011 January, SDSS-III has obtained spectra of more than 240,000 galaxies, 29,000 z {>=} 2.2 quasars, and 140,000 stars, including 74,000 velocity measurements of 2580 stars for MARVELS.

• OSTI ID: 21582976
• Journal Information: Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 142, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/142/3/72; ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ABUNDANCE
BARYONS
CALIBRATION
COSMOLOGY
DISTANCE
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
MILKY WAY
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
PLANETS
QUASARS
RADIAL VELOCITY
RED SHIFT
SATELLITES
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO
STARS
UNIVERSE
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
DIMENSIONLESS NUMBERS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EVOLUTION
FERMIONS
GALAXIES
HADRONS
MATTER
VELOCITY