Paper

The Spectroscopic Stage-5 Experiment

Chierchie, Fernando, Krolewski, Alex, ero-Romero, Jaime, Bailey, Stephen, Besuner, Robert, Drlica-Wagner, Alex, Frieman, Joshua, Green, Daniel, Münchmeyer, Moritz, Yèche, Christophe, Bault, Abby, Dey, Biprateep, McDonald, Patrick, Tarlé, Gregory, Li, Ting, Lapi, Agustin, Shafieloo, Arman, Avilés, Roberto, Galal, Malak, Leauthaud, Alexie, Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie, Bouri, Mohamed, Karcher, Armin, Ivanov, Mikhail, Abbott, Timothy, Gluscevic, Vera, MacBride, Sean, White, Martin, Jelinsky, Pat, Slepian, Zachay, Dey, Arjun, Guillermo Fernandez Moroni, Najita, Joan, Lin, Kenneth, Joyce, Richard, Ross, Ashley, Kirkby, David, Allen, Lori, Schubnell, Michael, Seljak, Uros, Lang, Dustin, Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, Roach, Brandon, Magneville, Christophe, Ebina, Haruki, Font-Ribera, Andreu, Schlegel, David, Lewandowski, Matthew, Ferraro, Simone, Coulton, William, Parker Fagrelius, Miller, Timothy, Poppett, Claire, Blas Irigoyen Gimenez, Boutsia, Konstantina, Rombach, Maxime, Juramy, Claire, Estrada, Juan, Myers, Adam, Doré, Olivier, Dawson, Kyle, Silber, Joseph, Rockosi, Constance, Martini, Paul, Panda, Swayamtrupta, Sai

2025

Overview

The existence, properties, and dynamics of the dark sectors of our universe pose fundamental challenges to our current model of physics, and large-scale astronomical surveys may be our only hope to unravel these long-standing mysteries. In this white paper, we describe the science motivation, instrumentation, and survey plan for the next-generation spectroscopic observatory, the Stage-5 Spectroscopic Experiment (Spec-S5). Spec-S5 is a new all-sky spectroscopic instrument optimized to efficiently carry out cosmological surveys of unprecedented scale and precision. The baseline plan for Spec-S5 involves upgrading two existing 4-m telescopes to new 6-m wide-field facilities, each with a highly multiplexed spectroscopic instrument capable of simultaneously measuring the spectra of 13,000 astronomical targets. Spec-S5, which builds and improves on the hardware used for previous cosmology experiments, represents a cost-effective and rapid approach to realizing a more than 10\\(\\times\\) gain in spectroscopic capability compared to the current state-of-the-art represented by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project (DESI). Spec-S5 will provide a critical scientific capability in the post-Rubin and post-DESI era for advancing cosmology, fundamental physics, and astrophysics in the 2030s.

• Publisher: Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
• Subject: Astronomical instruments / Cosmology / Dark energy / Measuring instruments / Sky surveys (astronomy) / Spectroscopic telescopes