Redshift Recovery & Large Ground-Based Surveys

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this program is to develop an innovative approach to galaxy redshift and distance estimation based on spatial clustering, a new and independent method. Measuring galaxy distances is fundamental to many investigations in Cosmology, such as Dark Energy studies. Knowledge of the redshifts of spectroscopically measured galaxies can be propagated to photometric objects using information extracted from spatial clustering. Dr. Menard will improve and generalize this idea to the point of being able to apply it to existing and future datasets, such as those to be gathered by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Broader impacts of the work include training of a postdoctoral researcher, sharing algorithms with the community, development of a graduate course on modern statistical analysis, and lecturing to Baltimore area high school students on distances in astronomy.