Validation of the Scientific Program for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
A. G. Adame, J. Aguilar, S. P. Ahlen, Shadab Alam, G. Aldering, D. M. Alexander, R. Alfarsy, Carlos Allende Prieto, Marcelo A. Alvarez, O. Alves, Abhijeet Anand, F. Andrade-Oliveira, E. Armengaud, J. Asorey, S. Àvila, Alejandro Avilés, S. Bailey, A. Balaguera-Antolínez, O. Ballester, C. Baltay, A. Bault, J Bautista, Jayashree Behera, S. F. Beltran, S. BenZvi, Leandro Beraldo e Silva, J. R. Bermejo-Climent, A. Berti, Robert Besuner, Florian Beutler, D. Bianchi, Chris Blake, Robert Blum, A. Bolton, S. Brieden, A. Brodzeller, D. Brooks, Zackary Brown, E. Buckley‐Geer, E. Burtin, L. Cabayol-Garcia, Zheng Cai, R. E. A. Canning, L. Cardiel-Sas, A. Carnero Rosell, F. J. Castander, Jorge L. Cervantes–Cota, Solène Chabanier, E. Chaussidon, J. Chaves-Montero, S. Chen, Xinyi Chen, Chia-Hsun Chuang, T. Claybaugh, Shaun Cole, Andrew P. Cooper, Andrei Cuceu, T. M. Davis, Kyle Dawson, Roger de Belsunce, Rodrigo de la Cruz, Axel de la Macorra, Arnaud de Mattia, R. Demina, U Demirbozan, Joseph DeRose, Arjun Dey, Biprateep Dey, G. Dhungana, Jiani Ding, Z. Ding, Peter Doel, Rajkumar Doshi, Kelly A. Douglass, A. C. Edge, Sarah Eftekharzadeh, Daniel J. Eisenstein, A. Elliott, S. Escoffier, Parker Fagrelius, Xiaohui Fan, K. Fanning, Victoria A. Fawcett, Simone Ferraro, J. Ereza, B. Flaugher, Andreu Font-Ribera, D. Forero-Sánchez, J. E. Forero-Romero, Carlos S. Frenk, B. T. Gänsicke, Luz Ángela García, J. García-Bellido, C. García-Quintero, L. H. Garrison, Héctor Gil-Marín, J. Golden-Marx, Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, A. X. Gonzalez-Morales, Violeta González-Pérez
Abstract
Abstract The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) was designed to conduct a survey covering 14,000 deg 2 over 5 yr to constrain the cosmic expansion history through precise measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). The scientific program for DESI was evaluated during a 5 month survey validation (SV) campaign before beginning full operations. This program produced deep spectra of tens of thousands of objects from each of the stellar Milky Way Survey (MWS), Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS), luminous red galaxy (LRG), emission line galaxy (ELG), and quasar target classes. These SV spectra were used to optimize redshift distributions, characterize exposure times, determine calibration procedures, and assess observational overheads for the 5 yr program. In this paper, we present the final target selection algorithms, redshift distributions, and projected cosmology constraints resulting from those studies. We also present a One-Percent Survey conducted at the conclusion of SV covering 140 deg 2 using the final target selection algorithms with exposures of a depth typical of the main survey. The SV indicates that DESI will be able to complete the full 14,000 deg 2 program with spectroscopically confirmed targets from the MWS, BGS, LRG, ELG, and quasar programs with total sample sizes of 7.2, 13.8, 7.46, 15.7, and 2.87 million, respectively. These samples will allow exploration of the Milky Way halo, clustering on all scales, and BAO measurements with a statistical precision of 0.28% over the redshift interval z < 1.1, 0.39% over the redshift interval 1.1 < z < 1.9, and 0.46% over the redshift interval 1.9 < z < 3.5.