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Project Overview
The Dark Energy Survey Data Management (DESDM) Project is developing the DESDM system, which will be used for the processing and calibration of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) data, and the DECam Community Pipeline, which will be used by NOAO to process DECam data obtained by non-DES observers. The DESDM team will also operate the DESDM system during the survey.
The DES is a project to study the nature of the dark energy and the cosmic acceleration through two coupled surveys. The first is a 5000 square degree multiband, optical survey of the south galactic cap region, and the second is a 40 square degree time domain search for supernovae. Achieving the DES science goals requires (1) building a new 3 deg^2 optical CCD camera (DECam) and (2) developing a modern and highly automated (DESDM) system to process, calibrate and archive the survey data. DECam will be mounted on the Blanco 4m telescope at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO) and used for 525 nights over five years to carry out the survey.
As described more on the DES Science page, the DES Collaboration will use the survey data to study the expansion history of the universe and the growth rate of cosmic structures. Together, these measurements will shed light on the observed acceleration of the cosmic expansion, which could be caused by a ubiquitous Dark Energy or perhaps be an indication of a flaw in our understanding of gravity on the largest distance scales.
The DES Collaboration consists of more than 100 scientists and engineers at 15 institutions. At present the collaboration is focused on two major construction projects. Fermilab is leading the construction of DECam with contributions coming from many of the partner institutions, and the University of Illinois is leading the development of DESDM, the data management system that will be used to transform the survey data into science ready data products and archive them for the Collaboration. In addition, an effort is underway at CTIO to make improvements to the Blanco 4m telescope to ensure efficient observing and high quality survey data.