This Partnership for International Research and Education award will support a multi-institutional partnership between Princeton University, Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, Catolica University (Chile) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) that will address many of the deepest and most pressing questions in cosmology: What is the mysterious dark energy that is the dominant form of energy in the universe? Where are most of the atoms in the universe? How do galaxies and their environments affect each other? These questions will be addressed by a detailed study of a 100 square-degree strip of the Southern sky. Our observations will focus on the universe when it was between 2 and 6 billion years old.
The new Southern African Large Telescope (SALT, in South Africa) will be used to make four-color images of the strip. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT, in Chile) will make microwave maps of this strip. We will identify galaxy clusters in the strip and then use the SALT spectrograph to obtain ages and redshifts for galaxies in the clusters. The Magellan and Blanco telescopes, also based in Chile, will provide additional high-quality imaging data for a gravitational lensing survey, directly probing the distribution of mass in the survey region. By combining our microwave maps with space-based X-ray observations, we will be able to measure the temperature and distribution of gas and compare it to the spatial distribution of galaxies. An integrated analysis and numerical simulation effort will combine all of the data sets and extract constraints on the universe as a whole and on the evolution of galaxies and clusters.
This ambitious program will build strong international collaborations based on the scientific talents of three major US astronomy and physics programs (Princeton, Rutgers, and the University of Pennsylvania) and of two Southern Hemisphere institutions, Catolica University (Chile) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). This novel multi-national effort will provide superb international scientific training for undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and young faculty. Undergraduate students will engage in an 8-week international research experience at one of the two Southern Hemisphere sites. Graduate students will be paired with their peers at other partner institutions and will participate in weekly video and web teleconferences. Semi-annual summer schools and workshops (alternating between hemispheres) will introduce graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to cutting-edge technologies, new scientific results, and different cultures. Students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty from other ACT institutions in the UK, Mexico, and Canada will also participate in the summer school, thus broadening the international collaborative network. Postdoctoral researchers and faculty will also travel to South Africa and Chile to work with their colleagues on data collection, analysis, and synthesis. This project will not only enable an exciting scientific research program but will also train future leaders that are able to prosper in the global scientific environment.
