The MegaMapper: A Stage-5 Spectroscopic Instrument Concept for the Study of Inflation and Dark Energy
astro-ph.IM
/ Authors
David J. Schlegel, Juna A. Kollmeier, Greg Aldering, Stephen Bailey, Charles Baltay, Christopher Bebek, Segev BenZvi, Robert Besuner, Guillermo Blanc, Adam S. Bolton
and 79 more authors
Ana Bonaca, Mohamed Bouri, David Brooks, Elizabeth Buckley-Geer, Zheng Cai, Jeffrey Crane, Regina Demina, Joseph DeRose, Arjun Dey, Peter Doel, Xiaohui Fan, Simone Ferraro, Douglas Finkbeiner, Andreu Font-Ribera, Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, Daniel Green, Gaston Gutierrez, Julien Guy, Henry Heetderks, Dragan Huterer, Leopoldo Infante, Patrick Jelinsky, Dionysios Karagiannis
/ Abstract
In this white paper, we present the MegaMapper concept. The MegaMapper is a proposed ground-based experiment to measure Inflation parameters and Dark Energy from galaxy redshifts at $2<z<5$. In order to achieve path-breaking results with a mid-scale investment, the MegaMapper combines existing technologies for critical path elements and pushes innovative development in other design areas. To this aim, we envision a 6.5-m Magellan-like telescope, with a newly designed wide field, coupled with DESI spectrographs, and small-pitch robots to achieve multiplexing of at least 26,000. This will match the expected achievable target density in the redshift range of interest and provide a 10x capability over the existing state-of the art, without a 10x increase in project budget.