Final Scientific/Technical Report: Integrating Advanced Software and Statistical Methods for Spectroscopic Dark Energy Surveys
- National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), Tuscon, AZ (United States) and La Serena (Chile); Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
“Dark energy” is a phenomenon of unknown origin that pervades the vacuum of space and is causing the present-day expansion of the universe to accelerate. Understanding the nature of dark energy is one of the most fundamental challenges to modern physics, having the potential to revolutionize our theories of both gravity and elementary particle physics. The effects of dark energy are currently only accessible to astronomical survey experiments that probe large volumes of the cosmos. One of the most powerful forms of experiment for studying dark energy is the cosmological “redshift survey,” which maps the large-scale structure of the universe as traced by the positions of galaxies, quasars, and intergalactic hydrogen clouds. The signature of dark energy and other cosmological parameters is imprinted on this large-scale structure as it evolves over cosmic time. This project focused on maximizing the accurate extraction of information from redshift surveys by improving the algorithms and statistics applied across the chain of inference from raw pixels to high-level cosmological parameter estimation. At the low level, this project developed new techniques for calibrating and analyzing high-background, low signal-to-noise data from astronomical survey spectrographs to provide reliable three-dimensional maps of galaxies and quasars throughout the universe. At the high level, this project developed new statistical frameworks for understanding the completeness of redshift surveys and the underlying demographics of the galaxies that they observe, thereby allowing for a more accurate connection between survey results and theoretical models. This work contributes to maximizing the scientific reach of existing and planned surveys, and opens new potential feasibility for more ambitious surveys in the future.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0010331
- OSTI ID:
- 1420056
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-UTAH-10331
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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