The BigBOSS Experiment
Abstract
BigBOSS is a Stage IV ground-based dark energy experiment to study baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) and the growth of structure with a wide-area galaxy and quasar redshift survey over 14,000 square degrees. It has been conditionally accepted by NOAO in response to a call for major new instrumentation and a high-impact science program for the 4-m Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak. The BigBOSS instrument is a robotically-actuated, fiber-fed spectrograph capable of taking 5000 simultaneous spectra over a wavelength range from 340 nm to 1060 nm, with a resolution R = 3000-4800. Using data from imaging surveys that are already underway, spectroscopic targets are selected that trace the underlying dark matter distribution. In particular, targets include luminous red galaxies (LRGs) up to z = 1.0, extending the BOSS LRG survey in both redshift and survey area. To probe the universe out to even higher redshift, BigBOSS will target bright [OII] emission line galaxies (ELGs) up to z = 1.7. In total, 20 million galaxy redshifts are obtained to measure the BAO feature, trace the matter power spectrum at smaller scales, and detect redshift space distortions. BigBOSS will provide additional constraints on early dark energy and on the curvature of the universe by measuring the Ly-alpha forest in the spectra of over 600,000 2.2 < z < 3.5 quasars. BigBOSS galaxy BAO measurements combined with an analysis of the broadband power, including the Ly-alpha forest in BigBOSS quasar spectra, achieves a FOM of 395 with Planck plus Stage III priors. This FOM is based on conservative assumptions for the analysis of broad band power (kmax = 0.15), and could grow to over 600 if current work allows us to push the analysis to higher wave numbers (kmax = 0.3). BigBOSS will also place constraints on theories of modified gravity and inflation, and will measure the sum of neutrino masses to 0.024 eV accuracy.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1106.1706,
title = {The BigBOSS Experiment},
author = {D. Schlegel and F. Abdalla and T. Abraham and C. Ahn and C. Allende Prieto and J. Annis and E. Aubourg and M. Azzaro and S. Bailey. C. Baltay and C. Baugh and C. Bebek and S. Becerril and M. Blanton and A. Bolton and B. Bromley and R. Cahn and P. -H. Carton and J. L. Cervantes-Cota and Y. Chu and M. Cortes and K. Dawson and A. Dey and M. Dickinson and H. T. Diehl and P. Doel and A. Ealet and J. Edelstein and D. Eppelle and S. Escoffier and A. Evrard and L. Faccioli and C. Frenk and M. Geha and D. Gerdes and P. Gondolo and A. Gonzalez-Arroyo and B. Grossan and T. Heckman and H. Heetderks and S. Ho and K. Honscheid and D. Huterer and O. Ilbert and I. Ivans and P. Jelinsky and Y. Jing and D. Joyce and R. Kennedy and S. Kent and D. Kieda and A. Kim and C. Kim and J. -P. Kneib and X. Kong and A. Kosowsky and K. Krishnan and O. Lahav and M. Lampton and S. LeBohec and V. Le Brun and M. Levi and C. Li and M. Liang and H. Lim and W. Lin and E. Linder and W. Lorenzon and A. de la Macorra and Ch. Magneville and R. Malina and C. Marinoni and V. Martinez and S. Majewski and T. Matheson and R. McCloskey and P. McDonald and T. McKay and J. McMahon and B. Menard and J. Miralda-Escude and M. Modjaz and A. Montero-Dorta and I. Morales and N. Mostek and J. Newman and R. Nichol and P. Nugent and K. Olsen and N. Padmanabhan and N. Palanque-Delabrouille and I. Park and J. Peacock and W. Percival and S. Perlmutter and C. Peroux and P. Petitjean and F. Prada and E. Prieto and J. Prochaska and K. Reil and C. Rockosi and N. Roe and E. Rollinde and A. Roodman and N. Ross and G. Rudnick and V. Ruhlmann-Kleider and J. Sanchez and D. Sawyer and C. Schimd and M. Schubnell and R. Scoccimaro and U. Seljak and H. Seo and E. Sheldon and M. Sholl and R. Shulte-Ladbeck and A. Slosar and D. S. Smith and G. Smoot and W. Springer and A. Stril and A. S. Szalay and C. Tao and G. Tarle and E. Taylor and A. Tilquin and J. Tinker and F. Valdes and J. Wang and T. Wang and B. A. Weaver and D. Weinberg and M. White and M. Wood-Vasey and J. Yang and X. Yang. Ch. Yeche and N. Zakamska and A. Zentner and C. Zhai and P. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.1706},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
This report is based on the BigBOSS proposal submission to NOAO in October 2010, and reflects the project status at that time with minor updates