Euclid Mission: building of a Reference Survey
Abstract
Euclid is an ESA Cosmic-Vision wide-field-space mission which is designed to explain the origin of the acceleration of Universe expansion. The mission will investigate at the same time two primary cosmological probes: Weak gravitational Lensing (WL) and Galaxy Clustering (in particular Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, BAO). The extreme precision requested on primary science objectives can only be achieved by observing a large number of galaxies distributed over the whole sky in order to probe the distribution of dark matter and galaxies at all scales. The extreme accuracy needed requires observation from space to limit all observational biases in the measurements. The definition of the Euclid survey, aiming at detecting billions of galaxies over 15 000 square degrees of the extragalactic sky, is a key parameter of the mission. It drives its scientific potential, its duration and the mass of the spacecraft. The construction of a Reference Survey derives from the high level science requirements for a Wide and a Deep survey. The definition of a main sequence of observations and the associated calibrations were indeed a major achievement of the Definition Phase. Implementation of this sequence demonstrated the feasibility of covering the requested area in less than 6 years while taking into account the overheads of space segment observing and maneuvering sequence. This reference mission will be used for sizing the spacecraft consumables needed for primary science. It will also set the framework for optimizing the time on the sky to fulfill the primary science and maximize the Euclid legacy.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1209.2228,
title = {Euclid Mission: building of a Reference Survey},
author = {J. Amiaux and R. Scaramella and Y. Mellier and B. Altieri and C. Burigana and A. Da Silva and P. Gomez and J. Hoar and R. Laureijs and E. Maiorano and D. Magalhaes Oliveira and F. Renk and G. Saavedra Criado and I. Tereno and J. L. Augueres and J. Brinchmann and M. Cropper and L. Duvet and A. Ealet and P. Franzetti and B. Garilli and P. Gondoin and L. Guzzo and H. Hoekstra and R. Holmes and K. Jahnke and T. Kitching and M. Meneghetti and W. Percival and S. Warren and the Euclid collaboration},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.2228},
year = {2015}
}