SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems

Daniel J. Eisenstein , David H. Weinberg , Eric Agol , Hiroaki Aihara , Carlos Allende Prieto , Scott F. Anderson , James A. Arns , E. Aubourg (1) , Stephen Bailey , Eduardo Balbinot , Robert Barkhouser , Timothy C. Beers , Andreas A. Berlind , Steven J. Bickerton , Dmitry Bizyaev , Michael R. Blanton , John J. Bochanski , Adam S. Bolton , Casey T. Bosman , Jo Bovy , Howard J. Brewington , W. N. Brandt , Ben Breslauer , J. Brinkmann , Peter J. Brown , Joel R. Brownstein , Dan Burger , N.G. Busca (2) , Heather Campbell , Phillip A. Cargile , William C. Carithers , Joleen K. Carlberg , Michael A. Carr , Yanmei Chen , Cristina Chiappini , Johan Comparat (3) , Natalia Connolly , Marina Cortes , Rupert A. C. Croft , Luiz N. da Costa , Katia Cunha , James R. A. Davenport , Kyle Dawson , Nathan de Lee , Gustavo F. Porto de Mello , Fernando de Simoni , Janice Dean , Saurav Dhital , Anne Ealet (4) , Garrett L. Ebelke , Edward M. Edmondson , Jacob M. Eiting , Stephanie Escoffier (4) , Massimiliano Esposito , Michael L. Evans , Xiaohui Fan , Bruno Femenia Castella , Leticia Dutra Ferreira , Greg Fitzgerald , Scott W. Fleming , Andreu Font-Ribera , Eric B. Ford , Peter M. Frinchaboy , Ana Elia Garcia Perez , B. Scott Gaudi , Jian Ge , Luan Ghezzi , Bruce A. Gillespie , G. Gilmore , Leo Girardi , J. Richard Gott , Andrew Gould , Eva K. Grebel , James E. Gunn , J.-C. Hamilton (2) , Paul Harding , David W. Harris , Suzanne L. Hawley , Frederick R. Hearty , Jonay I. Gonzalez Hernandez , Shirley Ho , David W. Hogg , Jon A. Holtzman , Klaus Honscheid , Naohisa Inada , Inese I. Ivans , Linhua Jiang , Peng Jiang , Jennifer A. Johnson , Cathy Jordan , Wendell P. Jordan , Guinevere Kauffmann , Eyal Kazin , David Kirkby (5) , Mark A. Klaene , Jean-Paul Kneib (3) , G. R. Knapp , C. S. Kochanek , Lars Koesterke , Juna A. Kollmeier , Richard G. Kron , Dustin Lang , James E. Lawler , Jean-Marc Le Goff (6) , Brian L. Lee , Young Sun Lee , Jarron M. Leisenring , Yen-Ting Lin , Jian Liu , Daniel C. Long , Craig P. Loomis , Sara Lucatello , Britt Lundgren , Robert H. Lupton , Bo Ma , Zhibo Ma , Nicholas Macdonald , Claude Mack , Suvrath Mahadevan , Marcio A. G. Maia , Elena Malanushenko , Viktor Malanushenko , Steven R. Majewski , Martin Makler , Rachel Mandelbaum , Claudia Maraston , Daniel Margala (5) , Paul Maseman , Karen L. Masters , Cameron K. Mcbride , Patrick Mcdonald , Ian D. Mcgreer , Richard G. Mcmahon , Olga Mena Requejo , Brice Menard , Jordi Miralda-Escude , Heather L. Morrison , Fergal Mullally , Demitri Muna , Hitoshi Murayama , Adam D. Myers , Tracy Naugle , Angelo Fausti Neto , Duy Cuong Nguyen , Robert C. Nichol , David L. Nidever , Robert W. O'Connell , Ricardo L. C. Ogando , Matthew D. Olmstead , Daniel J. Oravetz , Nikhil Padmanabhan , Martin Paegert , Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille (6) , Kaike Pan , Parul Pandey , John K. Parejko , Isabelle Paris (7) , Paulo Pellegrini , Joshua Pepper , Will J. Percival , Patrick Petitjean (7) , Robert Pfaffenberger , Janine Pforr , Stefanie Phleps , Christophe Pichon (7) , Matthew M. Pieri , Francisco Prada , Adrian M. Price-Whelan , M. Jordan Raddick , Beatriz H. F. Ramos , Céline Reylé (8) , I. Neill Reid , James Rich (6) , Gordon T. Richards , George H. Rieke , Marcia J. Rieke , Hans-Walter Rix , Annie C. Robin (8) , Helio J. Rocha-Pinto , Constance M. Rockosi , Natalie A. Roe , Emmanuel Rollinde (7) , Ashley J. Ross , Nicholas P. Ross , Bruno Rossetto , Ariel G. Sanchez , Basilio Santiago , Conor Sayres , Ricardo Schiavon , David J. Schlegel , Katharine J. Schlesinger , Sarah J. Schmidt , Donald P. Schneider , Kris Sellgren , Alaina Shelden , Erin Sheldon , Matthew Shetrone , Yiping Shu , John D. Silverman , Jennifer Simmerer , Audrey E. Simmons , Thirupathi Sivarani , M. F. Skrutskie , Anze Slosar , Stephen Smee , Verne V. Smith , Stephanie A. Snedden , Keivan G. Stassun , Oliver Steele , Matthias Steinmetz , Mark H. Stockett , Todd Stollberg , Michael A. Strauss , Masayuki Tanaka , Aniruddha R. Thakar , Daniel Thomas , Jeremy L. Tinker , Benjamin M. Tofflemire , Rita Tojeiro , Christy A. Tremonti , M. Vargas Magana (2) , Licia Verde , Nicole P. Vogt , David A. Wake , Xiaoke Wan , Ji Wang , Benjamin A. Weaver , Martin White , Simon D. M. White (5) , John C. Wilson , John P. Wisniewski , W. Michael Wood-Vasey , Brian Yanny , Naoki Yasuda , Christophe Yeche (6) , Donald G. York , Erick Young , Gail Zasowski , Idit Zehavi , Bo Zhao

1 APC - Cosmologie
2 APC (UMR_7164) - AstroParticule et Cosmologie
3 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
4 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
5 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Irvine]
6 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
7 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
8 UTINAM - Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213)

Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. In keeping with SDSS tradition, SDSS-III will provide regular public releases of all its data, beginning with SDSS DR8 (which occurred in Jan 2011). This paper presents an overview of the four SDSS-III surveys. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Lya forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the BAO feature of large scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z<0.7 and at z~2.5. SEGUE-2, which is now completed, measured medium-resolution (R=1800) optical spectra of 118,000 stars in a variety of target categories, probing chemical evolution, stellar kinematics and substructure, and the mass profile of the dark matter halo from the solar neighborhood to distances of 100 kpc. APOGEE will obtain high-resolution (R~30,000), high signal-to-noise (S/N>100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51-1.70 micron) spectra of 10^5 evolved, late-type stars, measuring separate abundances for ~15 elements per star and creating the first high-precision spectroscopic survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge, bar, disks, halo) with a uniform set of stellar tracers and spectral diagnostics. MARVELS will monitor radial velocities of more than 8000 FGK stars with the sensitivity and cadence (10-40 m/s, ~24 visits per star) needed to detect giant planets with periods up to two years, providing an unprecedented data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant planet systems. (Abridged)

Mots clés: cosmology: observations; Galaxy: evolution; planets and satellites: detection; surveys

Domaines: Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]; Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]

Daniel J. Eisenstein, David H. Weinberg, Eric Agol, Hiroaki Aihara, Carlos Allende Prieto, et al.. SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems. The Astronomical Journal, 2011, 142 (3), pp.72. ⟨10.1088/0004-6256/142/3/72⟩. ⟨hal-00662779⟩