WFIRST: the essential cosmology space observatory for the coming decade
O Dore, C Hirata, Y Wang, D Weinberg, T Eifler… - arXiv preprint arXiv …, 2019 - arxiv.org
arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.01174, 2019•arxiv.org
Two decades after its discovery, cosmic acceleration remains the most profound mystery in
cosmology and arguably in all of physics. Either the Universe is dominated by a form of dark
energy with exotic physical properties not predicted by standard model physics, or General
Relativity is not an adequate description of gravity over cosmic distances. WFIRST emerged
as a top priority of Astro2010 in part because of its ability to address the mystery of cosmic
acceleration through both high precision measurements of the cosmic expansion history and …
cosmology and arguably in all of physics. Either the Universe is dominated by a form of dark
energy with exotic physical properties not predicted by standard model physics, or General
Relativity is not an adequate description of gravity over cosmic distances. WFIRST emerged
as a top priority of Astro2010 in part because of its ability to address the mystery of cosmic
acceleration through both high precision measurements of the cosmic expansion history and …
Two decades after its discovery, cosmic acceleration remains the most profound mystery in cosmology and arguably in all of physics. Either the Universe is dominated by a form of dark energy with exotic physical properties not predicted by standard model physics, or General Relativity is not an adequate description of gravity over cosmic distances. WFIRST emerged as a top priority of Astro2010 in part because of its ability to address the mystery of cosmic acceleration through both high precision measurements of the cosmic expansion history and the growth of cosmic structures with multiple and redundant probes. We illustrate in this white paper how mission design changes since Astro2010 have made WFIRST an even more powerful dark energy facility and have improved the ability of WFIRST to respond to changes in the experimental landscape. WFIRST is the space-based probe of DE the community needs in the mid-2020s.
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