SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems
Creators: name: Eisenstein, Daniel J.
name: Weinberg, David H.
name: Agol, Eric
name: Aihara, Hiroaki
name: Prieto, Carlos Allende
name: Anderson, Scott F.
name: Arns, James A.
name: Aubourg, Eric
name: Bailey, Stephen
name: Balbinot, Eduardo
name: Barkhouser, Robert
name: Beers, Timothy C.
name: Berlind, Andreas A.
name: Bickerton, Steven J.
name: Bizyaev, Dmitry
name: Blanton, Michael R.
name: Bochanski, John J.
name: Bolton, Adam S.
name: Bosman, Casey T.
name: Bovy, Jo
name: Brewington, Howard J.
name: Brandt, W. N.
name: Breslauer, Ben
name: Brinkmann, J.
name: Brown, Peter J.
name: Brownstein, Joel R.
name: Burger, Dan
name: Busca, Nicolas G.
name: Campbell, Heather
name: Cargile, Phillip A.
name: Carithers, William C.
name: Carlberg, Joleen K.
name: Carr, Michael A.
name: Chen, Yanmei
name: Chiappini, Cristina
name: Comparat, Johan
name: Connolly, Natalia
name: Cortes, Marina
name: Croft, Rupert A. C.
name: da Costa, Luiz N.
name: Cunha, Katia
name: Davenport, James R. A.
name: Dawson, Kyle
name: De Lee, Nathan
name: de Mello, Gustavo F. Porto
name: de Simoni, Fernando
name: Dean, Janice
name: Dhital, Saurav
name: Ealet, Anne
name: Ebelke, Garrett L.
name: Edmondson, Edward M.
name: Eiting, Jacob M.
name: Escoffier, Stephanie
name: Esposito, Massimiliano
name: Evans, Michael L.
name: Fan, Xiaohui
name: Castella, Bruno Femenia
name: Ferreira, Leticia Dutra
name: Fitzgerald, Greg
name: Fleming, Scott W.
name: Font-Ribera, Andreu
name: Ford, Eric B.
name: Frinchaboy, Peter M.
name: Perez, Ana Elia Garcia
name: Gaudi, B. Scott
name: Ge, Jian
name: Ghezzi, Luan
name: Gillespie, Bruce A.
name: Gilmore, G.
name: Girardi, Leo
name: Gott, J. Richard
name: Gould, Andrew
name: Grebel, Eva K.
name: Gunn, James E.
name: Hamilton, Jean-Christophe
name: Harding, Paul
name: Harris, David W.
name: Hawley, Suzanne L.
name: Hearty, Frederick R.
name: Hernandez, Jonay I. Gonzalez
name: Ho, Shirley
name: Hogg, David W.
name: Holtzman, Jon A.
name: Honscheid, Klaus
name: Inada, Naohisa
name: Ivans, Inese I.
name: Jiang, Linhua
name: Jiang, Peng
name: Johnson, Jennifer A.
name: Jordan, Cathy
name: Jordan, Wendell P.
name: Kauffmann, Guinevere
name: Kazin, Eyal
name: Kirkby, David
name: Klaene, Mark A.
name: Kneib, Jean-Paul
name: Knapp, G. R.
name: Kochanek, C. S.
name: Koesterke, Lars
name: Kollmeier, Juna A.
name: Kron, Richard G.
name: Lang, Dustin
name: Lawler, James E.
name: Goff, Jean-Marc Le
name: Lee, Brian L.
name: Lee, Young Sun
name: Leisenring, Jarron M.
name: Lin, Yen-Ting
name: Liu, Jian
name: Long, Daniel C.
name: Loomis, Craig P.
name: Lucatello, Sara
name: Lundgren, Britt
name: Lupton, Robert H.
name: Ma, Bo
name: Ma, Zhibo
name: MacDonald, Nicholas
name: Mack, Claude
name: Mahadevan, Suvrath
name: Maia, Marcio A. G.
name: Malanushenko, Elena
name: Malanushenko, Viktor
name: Majewski, Steven R.
name: Makler, Martin
name: Mandelbaum, Rachel
name: Maraston, Claudia
name: Margala, Daniel
name: Maseman, Paul
name: Masters, Karen L.
name: McBride, Cameron K.
name: McDonald, Patrick
name: McGreer, Ian D.
name: McMahon, Richard G.
name: Requejo, Olga Mena
name: Menard, Brice
name: Miralda-Escude, Jordi
name: Morrison, Heather L.
name: Mullally, Fergal
name: Muna, Demitri
name: Murayama, Hitoshi
name: Myers, Adam D.
name: Naugle, Tracy
name: Neto, Angelo Fausti
name: Nguyen, Duy Cuong
name: Nichol, Robert C.
name: Nidever, David L.
name: O'Connell, Robert W.
name: Ogando, Ricardo L. C.
name: Olmstead, Matthew D.
name: Oravetz, Daniel J.
name: Padmanabhan, Nikhil
name: Paegert, Martin
name: Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie
name: Pan, Kaike
name: Pandey, Parul
name: Parejko, John K.
name: Paris, Isabelle
name: Pellegrini, Paulo
name: Pepper, Joshua
name: Percival, Will J.
name: Petitjean, Patrick
name: Pfaffenberger, Robert
name: Pforr, Janine
name: Phleps, Stefanie
name: Pichon, Christophe
name: Pieri, Matthew M.
name: Prada, Francisco
name: Price-Whelan, Adrian M.
name: Raddick, M. Jordan
name: Ramos, Beatriz H. F.
name: Ryle, Celine
name: Reid, I. Neill
name: Rich, James
name: Richards, Gordon T.
name: Rieke, George H.
name: Rieke, Marcia J.
name: Rix, Hans-Walter
name: Robin, Annie C.
name: Rocha-Pinto, Helio J.
name: Rockosi, Constance M.
name: Roe, Natalie A.
name: Rollinde, Emmanuel
name: Ross, Ashley J.
name: Ross, Nicholas P.
name: Rossetto, Bruno
name: Sanchez, Ariel G.
name: Santiago, Basilio
name: Sayres, Conor
name: Schiavon, Ricardo
name: Schlegel, David J.
name: Schlesinger, Katharine J.
name: Schmidt, Sarah J.
name: Schneider, Donald P.
name: Sellgren, Kris
name: Shelden, Alaina
name: Sheldon, Erin
name: Shetrone, Matthew
name: Shu, Yiping
name: Silverman, John D.
name: Simmerer, Jennifer
name: Simmons, Audrey E.
name: Sivarani, Thirupathi
name: Skrutskie, M. F.
name: Slosar, Anze
name: Smee, Stephen
name: Smith, Verne V.
name: Snedden, Stephanie A.
name: Stassun, Keivan G.
name: Steele, Oliver
name: Steinmetz, Matthias
name: Stockett, Mark H.
name: Stollberg, Todd
name: Strauss, Michael A.
name: Tanaka, Masayuki
name: Thakar, Aniruddha R.
name: Thomas, Daniel
name: Tinker, Jeremy L.
name: Tofflemire, Benjamin M.
name: Tojeiro, Rita
name: Tremonti, Christy A.
name: Magana, Mariana Vargas
name: Verde, Licia
name: Vogt, Nicole P.
name: Wake, David A.
name: Wan, Xiaoke
name: Wang, Ji
name: Weaver, Benjamin A.
name: White, Martin
name: White, Simon D. M.
name: Wilson, John C.
name: Wisniewski, John P.
name: Wood-Vasey, W. Michael
name: Yanny, Brian
name: Yasuda, Naoki
name: Yeche, Christophe
name: York, Donald G.
name: Young, Erick
name: Zasowski, Gail
name: Zehavi, Idit
name: Zhao, Bo
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. In keeping with SDSS tradition, SDSS-III will provide regular public releases of all its data, beginning with SDSS DR8 (which occurred in Jan 2011). This paper presents an overview of the four SDSS-III surveys. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Lya forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the BAO feature of large scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z&lt;0.7 and at z~2.5. SEGUE-2, which is now completed, measured medium-resolution (R=1800) optical spectra of 118,000 stars in a variety of target categories, probing chemical evolution, stellar kinematics and substructure, and the mass profile of the dark matter halo from the solar neighborhood to distances of 100 kpc. APOGEE will obtain high-resolution (R~30,000), high signal-to-noise (S/N&gt;100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51-1.70 micron) spectra of 10^5 evolved, late-type stars, measuring separate abundances for ~15 elements per star and creating the first high-precision spectroscopic survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge, bar, disks, halo) with a uniform set of stellar tracers and spectral diagnostics. MARVELS will monitor radial velocities of more than 8000 FGK stars with the sensitivity and cadence (10-40 m/s, ~24 visits per star) needed to detect giant planets with periods up to two years, providing an unprecedented data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant planet systems. (Abridged)
description: Revised to version published in The Astronomical Journal