Cosmology, Education, and Diverse Other Projects Supported by Two Astronomical Imaging Instruments

两台天文成像仪器支持的宇宙学、教育和各种其他项目

• 批准号: 1814719
• 负责人: Antony Stark
• 金额: $ 60.29万
• 依托单位: Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1814719&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Cosmology; Education; Diverse; Other; Projects

This project supports the operation of two astronomical cameras at the Las Campanas Observatory in the Andes Mountains of Chile: the Parallel Imager for Southern Cosmology Observations (PISCO) and the Southern MicroObservatory. PISCO is a professional astronomical camera mounted on the 6.5 meter Clay Telescope. PISCO has a novel design that allows it to take pictures in four different colors at the same time with four large CCD detectors over a piece of the sky about 1/10th the size of the moon. While the unique design of PISCO has made it useful for many astronomical discoveries, the principal project for which PISCO was built is follow-up of clusters of galaxies discovered by the South Pole Telescope (SPT). The SPT is the most sensitive and highest-resolution telescope in the world for observing the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation that arises in the early Universe. Because the space between galaxies in clusters is filled with hot plasma gas, galaxy clusters appear as a dark spots in front of the CMB. This is called the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Among the discoveries by the SPT so far are 530 galaxy clusters, and with a newly-installed highly-sensitive detector called SPT-3G, it will discover thousands more. When the SPT discovers a galaxy cluster, all that is known about it is its location and the size of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich spot, so follow-up observations by an optical telescope are needed. Some of those galaxy clusters will appear in existing optical sky surveys, but others will be too faint to appear or will be outside the survey area -- those galaxy clusters will be followed-up by PISCO in this project. The number and distribution of galaxy clusters provides information about the nature and history of Dark Energy, the mysterious force that dominates the Universe. Furthermore, PISCO may contribute to improving our knowledge of the mass of neutrinos via "weak lensing" measurements of the mass of the clusters. The determination of the mass of neutrino species has been identified as an important next step in particle physics, an advance that may have wide-reaching impacts on physics and technology, including nuclear physics here on Earth. The Southern MicroObservatory will be part of a network of automated telescopes that can be controlled over the Internet (mo-www.cfa.harvard.edu). The telescopes are designed to enable youth nationwide to investigate the wonders of the deep sky from their classrooms or after-school centers. This project will support the installation of a robotic MicroObservatory telescope at Las Campanas and integrate it with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Science Education Department Robotic Telescope Network for the online STEM learning community. The maintenance effort will be efficiently shared with PISCO operations.The South Pole Telescope consortium has completed the SPT-SZ and SPTPOL surveys and is now engaged in the SPT-3G deep millimeter-wave continuum survey that will detect thousands of previously-unknown galaxy clusters and groups through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. PISCO observations will play a key role in the production of a mass-limited redshift-independent catalog of galaxy clusters over ~9% of the sky. This searchable public database will include imaging as well as spectroscopy in the optical, infrared, and X-ray, enabling a wide variety of scientific studies. In this project, the SPT consortium will conduct multi-wavelength follow-up of the new SPT-3G survey in order to complete the SPT Cluster Legacy Archive. This three-year program will produce photometric and spectroscopic catalogs of volume complete samples of galaxy clusters over a 4000 square degree area of sky. After analyzing candidate cluster positions in existing survey data such as DES and VISTA, the SPT team will: (1) make the additional photometric imaging observations needed for completeness in redshift and mass limit, (2) obtain weak lensing measurements during periods of excellent seeing for a representative (albeit still large) subsample of these clusters, (3) make these evolving data sets promptly available to the astronomical and STEM learning communities in both raw and reduced form, through publications and a web-accessible, searchable archive, and (4) analyze the data for cosmology and the determination of neutrino properties. The formation of clusters and groups of galaxies is a battle between the gravitational attraction of Dark Matter, the dynamics of relativistic and non-relativistic particles, and the repulsive effect of Dark Energy. Their abundance over cosmic time is a sensitive probe of cosmology that complements and refines other cosmological tests. The redshift-independent archive of ~ 8000 confirmed clusters in this project will be the foundation for profound enhancements in our understanding of (a) fundamental properties of the Universe, including greatly improved constraints on the mass and number of neutrino species and the nature and history of Dark Energy out to z ~ 2, and (b) the astrophysics of galaxy clusters and their intracluster medium, the evolution of galaxies and their constituent stellar populations in high-density environments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目支持智利安第斯山脉拉斯坎帕纳斯天文台的两台天文照相机的运行：南方宇宙学观测平行成像仪和南方微型天文台。 皮斯科是安装在6.5米克莱望远镜上的专业天文相机。 皮斯科有一个新颖的设计，使它能够同时用四个大型CCD探测器在一片大约月球十分之一大小的天空上拍摄四种不同颜色的照片。 虽然皮斯科的独特设计使其对许多天文发现有用，但皮斯科的主要项目是跟踪南极望远镜发现的星系团。SPT是世界上最灵敏和分辨率最高的望远镜，用于观测早期宇宙中出现的宇宙微波背景辐射。 由于星系团中星系之间的空间充满了炽热的等离子体气体，星系团在CMB前面看起来就像一个黑点。 这就是所谓的Sunyaev-Zel'dovich效应。 到目前为止，SPT发现了530个星系团，而随着新安装的高灵敏度探测器SPT-3G，它将发现数千个星系团。 当SPT发现一个星系团时，我们所知道的只是它的位置和Sunyaev-Zel'dovich斑点的大小，因此需要光学望远镜进行后续观测。 其中一些星系团将出现在现有的光学天空调查中，但其他星系团将太暗而无法出现或将在调查区域之外-这些星系团将由皮斯科在该项目中跟踪。 星系团的数量和分布提供了关于暗能量的性质和历史的信息，暗能量是支配宇宙的神秘力量。 此外，皮斯科可能有助于通过对星团质量的“弱透镜”测量来提高我们对中微子质量的认识。确定中微子物质的质量已被确定为粒子物理学的重要下一步，这一进步可能对物理学和技术产生广泛影响，包括地球上的核物理学。 南方微型天文台将成为可通过互联网（mo-www.cfa.harvard.edu）控制的自动化望远镜网络的一部分。这些望远镜的目的是让全国的年轻人能够在教室或课后中心研究深空的奇观。 该项目将支持在Las Campanas安装机器人微型天文台望远镜，并将其与史密森天体物理观测台的科学教育部机器人望远镜网络集成，用于在线STEM学习社区。南极望远镜联合体已经完成了SPT-SZ和SPTPOL调查，目前正在进行SPT-3G深毫米波连续谱调查，该调查将通过Sunyaev-Zel'dovich效应探测数千个以前未知的星系团和星系群。皮斯科的观测将在制作一个质量有限的红移独立的星系团目录中发挥关键作用，该目录覆盖天空的约9%。这个可搜索的公共数据库将包括光学，红外和X射线的成像和光谱学，从而实现各种各样的科学研究。在本项目中，SPT联合体将对新的SPT-3G调查进行多波长跟踪，以完成SPT集群遗留档案。 这个为期三年的计划将产生超过4000平方度的天空区域的星系团体积完整样本的光度和光谱目录。在分析了DES和VISTA等现有调查数据中的候选聚类位置后，小组委员会小组将：（1）进行额外的光度成像观测，以完成红移和质量极限，（2）在具有代表性的良好视宁度期间获得弱透镜测量。（尽管仍然很大）这些集群的子样本，（3）使这些不断变化的数据集以原始和简化的形式迅速提供给天文学和STEM学习社区，通过出版物和网络访问，可搜索的档案，和（4）分析宇宙学的数据和确定中微子的属性。 星系团和星系群的形成是暗物质的引力、相对论和非相对论粒子的动力学以及暗能量的排斥效应之间的斗争。它们在宇宙时间内的丰度是宇宙学的一个敏感探测器，补充和完善了其他宇宙学测试。在这个项目中，约8000个确认的星系团的红移无关档案将成为我们深刻增强对以下方面理解的基础：（a）宇宙的基本性质，包括对中微子物质的质量和数量以及z ~ 2暗能量的性质和历史的极大改进的约束，以及（B）星系团及其内部介质的天体物理学，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

项目成果

A Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Lensing Potential and Power Spectrum from 500 deg 2 of SPTpol Temperature and Polarization Data

根据 500 deg 2 SPTpol 温度和偏振数据测量宇宙微波背景透镜势和功率谱

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab4186
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: Wu, W. L.;Mocanu, L. M.;Ade, P. A.;Anderson, A. J.;Austermann, J. E.;Avva, J. S.;Beall, J. A.;Bender, A. N.;Benson, B. A.;Bianchini, F.
• 通讯作者: Bianchini, F.

The Clusters Hiding in Plain Sight (CHiPS) Survey: Complete Sample of Extreme BCG Clusters

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abe1bc
• 发表时间: 2021-01
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: T. Somboonpanyakul;M. McDonald;M. Gaspari;B. Stalder;A. Stark

Measurements of the Cross-spectra of the Cosmic Infrared and Microwave Backgrounds from 95 to 1200 GHz

95 至 1200 GHz 宇宙红外和微波背景交叉光谱的测量

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab2da0
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: Viero, M. P.;Reichardt, C. L.;Benson, B. A.;Bleem, L. E.;Bock, J.;Carlstrom, J. E.;Chang, C. L.;Cho, H-M.;Crawford, T. M.;Crites, A. T.
• 通讯作者: Crites, A. T.

Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cross-correlation between Dark Energy Survey Y1 galaxy weak lensing and South Pole Telescope +Planck CMB weak lensing

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.100.043517
• 发表时间: 2018-10
• 期刊: Physical Review D
• 影响因子: 5
• 作者: Y. Omori;E. Baxter;C. Chang;D. Kirk;A. Alarcon;G. Bernstein;L. Bleem;R. Cawthon;A. Choi;R. Chown;T. Crawford;C. Davis;J. Vicente;J. DeRose;S. Dodelson;T. Eifler;P. Fosalba;O. Friedrich;M. Gatti;E. Gaztañaga;T. Giannantonio;D. Gruen;W. Hartley;G. Holder;B. Hoyle;D. Huterer;B. Jain;M. Jarvis;E. Krause;N. MacCrann;R. Miquel;J. Prat;M. Rau;C. Reichardt;E. Rozo;S. Samuroff;C. S'anchez;L. Secco;E. Sheldon;G. Simard;M. Troxel;P. Vielzeuf;Risa Wechsler;J. Zuntz;T. Abbott;F. Abdalla;S. Allam;J. Annis;S. Ávila;K. Aylor;B. Benson;E. Bertin;S. Bridle;D. Brooks;D. Burke;J. Carlstrom;A. Rosell;M. Kind;J. Carretero;F. Castander;C. Chang;H.-M. Cho;A. Crites;M. Crocce;C. Cunha;L. Costa;T. Haan;S. Desai;H. Diehl;J. Dietrich;M. Dobbs;W. Everett;E. Fernandez;B. Flaugher;J. Frieman;J. Garc'ia-Bellido;E. George;R. Gruendl;G. Gutiérrez;N. Halverson;N. Harrington;D. Hollowood;K. Honscheid;W. Holzapfel;Z. Hou;J. Hrubeš;D. James;T. Jeltema;K. Kuehn;N. Kuropatkin;M. Lima;H. Lin;A. Lee;E. Leitch;D. Luong-Van;M. Maia;A. Manzotti;D. Marrone;J. Marshall;P. Martini;J. McMahon;Peter Melchior;F. Menanteau;S. Meyer;L. Mocanu;J. Mohr;T. Natoli;R. Ogando;S. Padin;A. Plazas;C. Pryke;A. Romer;A. Roodman;J. Ruhl;E. Rykoff;E. Sánchez;V. Scarpine;K. Schaffer;R. Schindler;I. Sevilla-Noarbe;E. Shirokoff;M. Smith;R. C. Smith;M. Soares-Santos;F. Sobreira;Z. Staniszewski;A. Stark;K. Story;E. Suchyta;M. Swanson;G. Tarlé;D. Thomas;K. Vanderlinde;J. Vieira;V. Vikram;A. Walker;J. Weller;R. Williamson;W. L. K. Wu;O. Zahn

Constraints on Cosmological Parameters from the 500 deg 2 SPTPOL Lensing Power Spectrum

500 deg 2 SPTPOL 透镜功率谱对宇宙学参数的约束

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab6082
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: Bianchini, F.;Wu, W. L.;Ade, P. A.;Anderson, A. J.;Austermann, J. E.;Avva, J. S.;Beall, J. A.;Bender, A. N.;Benson, B. A.;Bleem, L. E.
• 通讯作者: Bleem, L. E.