From DOE, Dec. 9, 2019: Fermilab scientist Josh Frieman writes about the search for the nature of dark energy at the national laboratories and how the Office of Science’s High Energy Physics program has been at the vanguard of a number of cosmic surveys.
dark energy
From DOE, Nov. 20, 2019: Fermilab scientist Antonella Palmese is quoted in this article on scientists’ efforts to get to the bottom of the nature of dark energy. These efforts include the Dark Energy Survey, hosted by Fermilab, and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, on which Fermilab scientists are collaborators.
Berkeley Lab’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument aimed its robotic array of 5,000 fiber-optic “eyes” at the night sky Oct. 22 to capture the first images showing its unique view of galaxy light. It was the first test DESI with its nearly complete complement of components. Fermilab contributed key elements to DESI, including the corrector barrel, hexapod, cage and CCDs. Fermilab also provided the online databases used for data acquisition and the software for the instrument’s robotic positioners.
From UChicago News, Oct. 18, 2019: The Department of Energy has honored University of Chicago scientists Josh Frieman, also of Fermilab, and Ian Foster, also of Argonne National Laboratory, for their transformative research and scientific leadership, selecting them as part of its inaugural Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellowship program. Frieman was listed for “pioneering advances in the science of dark energy and cosmic acceleration, including leading the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey, co-founding the Dark Energy Survey and service as its director.”
The Dark Energy Survey has delivered dark energy constraints combining information from four of its primary cosmological probes for the first time, an approach that may help design other experiments into cosmic acceleration.
From The University of Arizona News, Aug. 1, 2019: The University of Arizona touts two members of the Dark Energy Survey who received DOE awards.
It took three sky surveys to prepare for a new project that will create the largest 3-D map of the universe’s galaxies and glean new insights about the universe’s accelerating expansion. This Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project will explore this expansion, driven by a mysterious property known as dark energy, in great detail. The surveys, which wrapped up in March, have amassed images of more than 1 billion galaxies and are essential in selecting celestial objects to target with DESI, now under construction in Arizona.
From Cosmos, May 6, 2019: An extensive analysis of four different phenomena within the universe points the way to understanding the nature of dark energy, the Dark Energy Survey reveals.
From APS’s Physics, May 1, 2019: The Dark Energy Survey has combined its analysis of four cosmological observables to constrain the properties of dark energy—paving the way for cosmological surveys that will run in the next decade.
The optical lenses for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument have seen their first light. Fermilab contributed key components to DESI, including the corrector barrel and its support structures, along with vital software that ensures the instrument’s 5,000 robotic positioners are precisely aligned with their celestial targets.