The Dark Energy Survey

This book is about the Dark Energy Survey, a cosmological experiment designed to investigate the physical nature of dark energy by measuring its effect on the expansion history of the universe and on the growth of large-scale structure. The survey saw first light in 2012, after a decade of planning, and completed observations in 2019. The collaboration designed and built a 570-megapixel camera and installed it on the four-metre Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Chilean Andes. The survey data yielded a three-dimensional map of over 300 million galaxies and a catalogue of thousands of supernovae. Analysis of the early data has confirmed remarkably accurately the model of cold dark matter and a cosmological constant. The survey has also offered new insights into galaxies, supernovae, stellar evolution, solar system objects and the nature of gravitational wave events.A project of this scale required the long-term commitment of hundreds of scientists from institutions all over the world. The chapters in the first three sections of the book were either written by these scientists or based on interviews with them. These chapters explain, for a non-specialist reader, the science analysis involved. They also describe how the project was conceived, and chronicle some of the many and diverse challenges involved in advancing our understanding of the universe. The final section is trans-disciplinary, including inputs from a philosopher, an anthropologist, visual artists and a poet. Scientific collaborations are human endeavours and the book aims to convey a sense of the wider context within which science comes about.This book is addressed to scientists, decision makers, social scientists and engineers, as well as to anyone with an interest in contemporary cosmology and astrophysics.Contents: Foreword, Martin J ReesPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction to the Dark Energy Survey Project and Science: What Have We Learned So Far? (Josh Frieman & Ofer Lahav)Building the Dark Energy Survey:Early Days of the Dark Energy Survey (Josh Frieman, John Peoples, Chris Smith & Alistair Walker)The Dark Energy Camera (David Brooks, H Thomas Diehl, Peter Doel & Brenna Flaugher)Installation and First Light (Tim Abbott, H Thomas Diehl & Alistair Walker)Commissioning the Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco Telescope (Aaron Roodman & Alistair Walker)The Dark Energy Survey Early Observations and Science Verification (Gary Bernstein & Klaus Honscheid)DES as a Big Data Machine Part I: The Dark Energy Survey Data Management System (Robert Gruendl & Donald Petravick)DES as a Big Data Machine Part II: Source Extractor and the Dark Energy Survey Science Portal (Emmanuel Bertin, Luiz da Costa & Angelo Fausti)The Dark Energy Survey Strategy and Calibration (James Annis, Eric Neilsen & Douglas Tucker)Dark Energy Science:Type Ia Supernovae (Chris D'Andrea, Rick Kessler, John Marriner, Bob Nichol & Masao Sako)Large-Scale Structure of the Universe (Martin Crocce, Will Percival, Ashley Ross & Eusebio Sánchez)Weak Gravitational Lensing (Daniel Gruen, Bhuvnesh Jain & Michael Troxel)Galaxy Clusters (Tesla Jeltema, Tim McKay, Chris Miller, Joe Mohr & Kathy Romer)Theory and Combined Probes (Scott Dodelson, Tim Eifler, Wayne Hu, Dragan Huterer, Elisabeth Krause, Eduardo Rozo & Jochen Weller)Spectroscopic Redshifts (Chris D'Andrea, Tamara Davis, Janie Hoormann, Alex Kim & Chris Lidman)Photometric Redshifts (Chris Bonnett, Francisco Castander, Tamara Davis, Ben Hoyle, Ofer Lahav, Huan Lin & Carles Sánchez)Simulating the Dark Energy Survey (Gus Evrard, Pablo Fosalba, Katrin Heitmann, Andrey Kravtsov & Risa Wechsler)Non-Dark Energy Science:Galaxy Evolution (Manda Banerji, Will Hartley, Daniel Thomas & Risa Wechsler)Quasars (Xin Liu, Paul Martini & Richard McMahon)Strong Gravitational Lensing (Adam Amara, Elizabeth Buckley-Geer, Martin Makler & Brian Nord)Stellar, Milky Way and Local Group Science (Keith Bechtol, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Ting Li, Jennifer Marshall, Basilio Santiago & Brian Yanny)Solar System Science (David Gerdes)Optical Follow-ups to Gravitational Wave Events (Marcelle Soares-Santos)Reflections and Outlook:An Anthropology Angle: Credit and Uncertainty in the Dark Energy Survey (Lucy Calder, with Martin Holbraad)A Philosopher's Look at the Dark Energy Survey: Reflections on the Use of Bayes Factors in Cosmology (Michela Massimi)Artists' Reflections (Judy Goldhill & Jane Grisewood)At the Edge of the Abyss: A Poem for the Dark Energy Survey (Amy Catanzano)The Dark Energy Survey and the Future of Dark Energy (David Weinberg)Appendix A: The US Department of Energy Approval ProcessAppendix B: : The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration Meeting Group PhotosIndex
Readership: Undergraduate and PhD students, DES members, members of other big collaborations, the general community of astronomers and physicists, funding agencies, policy makers, historians and anthropologists of science, educated laypeople interested in science.Cosmology;Astrophysics;Dark Energy;Dark Matter00