SPEAKER: Kevin Fanning – Ohio State – TITLE: Excitement and Challenges with Multiplexed Spectroscopic Galaxy Surveys

This is an in-person Event

Location: Sessler Conference Room – 50A-5132

TITLE: Excitement and Challenges with Multiplexed Spectroscopic Galaxy Surveys

ABSTRACT:

The ongoing Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Survey is collecting galaxy redshifts at an astounding rate. Analysis from this new data promises exciting new constraints on big cosmological problems such as dark energy models and primordial non-gaussianity along with a measurement of the sum of the neutrino masses. Key technologies including the robotic focal plane system help enable nearly 5,000 simultaneous spectra with on average 2 minutes between exposures. In this talk I will describe some of the challenges encountered optimizing the DESI instrument for science results. Furthermore, I will discuss some of the impact the focal plane and fiber assignment algorithms have on galaxy clustering data and some novel mitigations I am exploring to resolve this problem. Finally, I will conclude with a look to the future and how we can engage in current efforts to build on the success of DESI.