The Dark Energy Survey will use a new wide-field camera on a telescope in Chile to map 300 million galaxies and measure how the Universe's expansion has changed over time. This matters because the Universe appears to be mostly made of two invisible substances—dark matter and dark energy—whose nature remains unknown. Current measurements show the Universe contains roughly 4% ordinary matter, 26% dark matter, and 70% dark energy, but no one knows what dark energy actually is. The survey will track how galaxies cluster, how light bends around massive objects, and how supernovae brighten and fade, giving astronomers the data needed to measure dark energy's properties to within a few percent. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. It addresses a basic question about the composition and fate of the Universe. Similar curiosity-driven astronomy in the past—such as the discovery that the Universe is expanding—eventually led to technologies like GPS, which relies on relativistic corrections derived from cosmological understanding. A deeper grasp of dark energy could, in the long term, reshape physics in ways that enable unforeseen applications.
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What is the Universe made of? The recent astronomical measurements suggest a model in which the universe is flat and contains approximately 4% ordinary matter (baryons), 26 % mysterious cold dark matter and 70 % exotic dark energy, with small possible contribution of known massive particles called neutrinos. This model poses fundamental questions about the nature of the dark matter and the dark energy. These topics are of great interest to astronomers, physicists and the general public. We propose to join an international collaboration to conduct the Dark Energy Survey (DES) by helping to build a new wide-field camera for a large telescope in Chile. The planned survey will take place from 2009 to 2014 through 5 observing seasons, approximately 525 nights in total. The survey will provide crude distances for 300 million galaxies one order of magnitude larger than the number of galaxies with available distances to date. It will be used to study galaxy clustering, clusters, standard 'candles' called Supernovae and the bending of light from distant sources by large masses along the line of sight. The primary goal is to accurately determining properties of dark energy and dark matter in the Universe to within few percent. It is proposed that the instrumentation group at UCL (the Optical Science Laboratory) will make a significant in-kind contribution to the optics of the upgraded telescope at a proposed cost of approximately 15% of the total estimated cost of DES. This in-kind contribution will allow UK astronomers to access DES data and to take on leadership roles in key projects on cosmology and galaxy formation. A special benefit to UK astronomers would be the access to both the visible DES data and the infra-red data (from another telescope in Chile called VISTA).
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