Cosmology with ESO telescopes Bruno Leibundgut

Outline Past and current cosmology projects with ESO telescopes Future instrumentation capabilities (interferometry?) VLT 2 nd generation instruments APEX Survey telescopes (VST, VISTA) ALMA ESO-ESA Working Group on Fundamental Cosmology The way to a European ELT

Current VLT projects FIRES, GOODS, VVDS, K-20, GMASS, zCOSMOS detection of new classes of high-z galaxies: massive, red galaxies old ellipticals at z~2 large number of star forming galaxies at z>1.5 SNLS, ESSENCE systematics of SNe Ia GRBs probing the end of reionisation? Variable fine-structure constant Franx et al. (2003) Chand et al. (2003) Vanzella et al Blondin et al. (2006)

VLT 2 nd Generation Instruments X-Shooter single source spectroscopy (UV through NIR) GRBs, SNe (physics) HAWK-I wide-field near-IR imager EROs, distant galaxies clusters, z>7 galaxies KMOS multi-objects IR spectrograph mass assembly of galaxies, z>7 galaxies MUSE optical multi-object, integral-field massive spectrograph deep Ly-α surveys, black holes Adaptive Optics supported

Future possibilities New Facilities –APEX Bonn-Berkeley Sunyaev-Zeldovich Survey –Survey telescopes VST and VISTA –KIDS, ATLAS –ALMA use the negative K-corrections –ELT see Sandro D’Odorico’s talk Bertoldi

Public Surveys KIDS weak lensing  mass distribution, galaxy power spectrum, dark energy; very high-z QSOs 1400 sq. degree in five bands (u’g’r’i’z’) (plus JHK from either UKIDSS and/or VISTA) depth r’~24 (AB) ATLAS (Southern SDSS complement) baryon accoustic oscillations, dark energy 4500 sq. degree in five bands (u’g’r’i’z’) depth r’~22 (AB)

ALMA Dust absorption not a problem Opens up observations of dust at high redshifts Negative K-corrections Observations right into the ‘dark ages’ Bertoldi et al (2003) Walter et al. (2003)

ESO-ESA working group on fundamental cosmology Composition John Peacock (Edinburgh, chair) Peter Schneider (Bonn, co-chair) John Ellis (CERN) Georg Efstathiou (Cambridge) Bruno Leibundgut (ESO) Simon Lilly (Zurich) Yannick Mellier (Paris) A critical review of global efforts in this area Assess what ESA & ESO are doing now Independent opinion on possible new ESA/ESO projects – or adding synergy

Big questions 1.What is the right physics? 2.Did inflation happen? 3.What is the dark matter? 4.What is the dark energy? 5.What generated the baryon asymmetry? 6.Are there other relics to be found (e.g. cosmic strings)? 7.Are there extra dimensions? 8.Do fundamental constants vary?

First ideas Some progress identified large imaging surveys (like KIDS) weak lensing and acoustic baryonic oscillations (based on photo-z, i.e. requires IR as well) massive spectroscopic surveys acoustic baryonic oscillations synergy with space imaging from space, photo-z from the ground (e.g. DUNE and darkCAM) Difficulties long lead times for instruments ESA Cosmic Vision setting out plans for ELT operational not before 2015

Extremely Large Telescope OPTICON science working group External Review of the OWL Project (November ’05) Creation of five working groups at ESO (January/February ’06) Science, telescope design, instruments, adaptive optics, site ELT science and engineering working group (March/April ’06)

ELT (cont.) Consolidation of various reports (end of April) Pre-selection of design by end of 2006 Preliminary design end of 2007 Science themes first objects, end of reionisation, cosmology with SNe, gravitational lensing, galaxy evolution

Where is cosmology moving to? large surveys large teams exclusive use of telescope resources cf. CFHTLS, VST, VISTA Should large telescopes be dedicated to solve specific questions?