Monday, November 5, 2012

1211.0285 (Caty Pilachowski et al.)

Addressing Decadal Survey Science through Community Access to Highly Multiplexed Spectroscopy with BigBOSS on the KPNO Mayall Telescope    [PDF]

Caty Pilachowski, Carles Badenes, Stephen Bailey, Aaron Barth, Rachel Beaton, Eric Bell, Rebecca Bernstein, Fuyan Bian, Michael Blanton, Robert Blum, Adam Bolton, Howard Bond, Mark Brodwin, James Bullock, Jeff Carlin, Ranga-Ram Chary, David Cinabro, Michael Cooper, Jorge L. C. Cota, Marc Davis, Kyle Dawson, Arjun Dey, Megan Donahue, Jeremy Drake, Erica Ellingson, Lorenzo Faccioli, Xiaohui Fan, Harry Ferguson, Eric Gawiser, Marla Geha, Mauro Giavalisco, Anthony Gonzalez, Kim Griest, Bruce Grossan, Raja Guhathakurta, Paul Harding, Sara R. Heap, Shirley Ho, Steve Howell, Buell Jannuzi, Jason Kalirai, Brian Keeney, Lisa Kewley, Xu Kong, Michael Lampton, Wei-Peng Lin, Axel de la Macorra, Lucas Macri, Steve Majewski, Paul Martini, Phil Massey, Virginia McSwain, Adam A. Miller, Dante Minniti, Maryam Modjaz, Heather Morrison, John Moustakas, Adam Myers, Joan Najita, Jeffrey Newman, Dara Norman, Knut Olsen, Michael Pierce, Alexandra Pope, Moire Prescott, Naveen Reddy, Kevin Reil, Armin Rest, Katherine Rhode, Connie Rockosi, Greg Rudnick, Abhijit Saha, John Salzer, David Sanders, David Schlegel, Branimir Sesar, Joseph Shields, Jeffrey Silverman, Josh Simon, Adam Stanford, Daniel Stern, Lisa Storrie-Lombardi, Nicholas Suntzeff, Jason Surace, Alex Szalay, Melville Ulmer, Ben Weiner, Beth Willman, Rogier Windhorst, Michael Wood-Vasey
This document summarizes the results of a community-based discussion of the potential science impact of the Mayall+BigBOSS highly multiplexed multi-object spectroscopic capability. The KPNO Mayall 4m telescope equipped with the DOE- and internationally-funded BigBOSS spectrograph offers one of the most cost-efficient ways of accomplishing many of the pressing scientific goals identified for this decade by the "New Worlds, New Horizons" report. The BigBOSS Key Project will place unprecedented constraints on cosmological parameters related to the expansion history of the universe. With the addition of an open (publicly funded) community access component, the scientific impact of BigBOSS can be extended to many important astrophysical questions related to the origin and evolution of galaxies, stars, and the IGM. Massive spectroscopy is the critical missing ingredient in numerous ongoing and planned ground- and space-based surveys, and BigBOSS is unique in its ability to provide this to the US community. BigBOSS data from community-led projects will play a vital role in the education and training of students and in maintaining US leadership in these fields of astrophysics. We urge the NSF-AST division to support community science with the BigBOSS multi-object spectrograph through the period of the BigBOSS survey in order to ensure public access to the extraordinary spectroscopic capability.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.0285

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