iEuclid/i mission: building of a reference survey

摘要

iEuclid/i is an ESA Cosmic-Vision wide-field-space mission which is designed to explain the origin of the acceleration ofUniverse expansion. The mission will investigate at the same time two primary cosmological probes: Weak gravitationalLensing (WL) and Galaxy Clustering (in particular Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, BAO). The extreme precisionrequested on primary science objectives can only be achieved by observing a large number of galaxies distributed overthe whole sky in order to probe the distribution of dark matter and galaxies at all scales. The extreme accuracy neededrequires observation from space to limit all observational biases in the measurements. The definition of thei Euclid/isurvey, aiming at detecting billions of galaxies over 15 000 square degrees of the extragalactic sky, is a key parameter ofthe mission. It drives its scientific potential, its duration and the mass of the spacecraft. The construction of a ReferenceSurvey derives from the high level science requirements for a Wide and a Deep survey. The definition of a mainsequence of observations and the associated calibrations were indeed a major achievement of the Definition Phase.Implementation of this sequence demonstrated the feasibility of covering the requested area in less than 6 years whiletaking into account the overheads of space segment observing and maneuvering sequence. This reference mission will beused for sizing the spacecraft consumables needed for primary science. It will also set the framework for optimizing thetime on the sky to fulfill the primary science and maximize the iEuclid/i legacy.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.