The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts for the enhanced Large Aperture Telescope

Abitbol, M., Abril-Cabezas, I., Adachi, S., Ade, P.

, Adler, A.E., Agrawal, P., Aguirre, J., Ahmed, Z., Aiola, S., Alford, T., Ali, A., Alonso, D., Alvarez, M.A., An, R., Arnold, K., Ashton, P., Atkins, Z., Austermann, J., Azzoni, S., Baccigalupi, C., Baleato Lizancos, A., Barron, D., Barry, P., Bartlett, J., Battaglia, N., Battye, R., Baxter, E., Bazarko, A., Beall, J.A., Bean, R., Beck, D., Beckman, S., Begin, J., Beheshti, A., Beringue, B., Bhandarkar, T., Bhimani, S., Bianchini, F., Biermann, E., Biquard, S., Bixler, B., Boada, S., Boettger, D., Bolliet, B., Bond, J. R., Borrill, J., Borrow, J., Braithwaite, C., Brien, T. L. R., Brown, M L., Bruno, S. M., Bryan, S., Bustos, R., Cai, H., Calabrese, E.

, Calafut, V., Carl, F.M., Carones, A., Carron, J., Challinor, A., Chanial, P., Chen, N., Cheung, K., Chiang, B., Chinone, Y., Chluba, J., Cho, H.S., Choi, S.K., Chu, M., Clancy, J., Clark, S.E., Clarke, P., Cleary, J., Clements, D.L., Connors, J., Contaldi, C., Coppi, G., Corbett, L., Cothard, N.F., Coulton, W., Crowley, K.D., Crowley, K.T., Cukierman, A., D'Ewart, J.M., Dachlythra, K., Datta, R., Day-Weiss, S., de Haan, T., Devlin, M., Di Mascolo, L., Dicker, S., Dober, B., Doux, C., Dow, P., Doyle, S.

, Duell, C.J., Duff, S.M., Duivenvoorden, A.J., Dunkley, J., Dutcher, D., Dünner, R., Edenton, M., El Bouhargani, H., Errard, J., Fabbian, G.

, Fanfani, V., Farren, G. S., Fergusson, J., Ferraro, S., Flauger, R., Foster, A., Freese, K., Frisch, J.C., Frolov, A., Fuller, G., Galitzki, N., Gallardo, P.A., Galvez Ghersi, J.T., Ganga, K., Gao, J., Garrido, X., Gawiser, E., Gerbino, M., Gerras, R., Giardiello, S., Gill, A., Gilles, V., Giri, U., Gleave, E., Gluscevic, V., Goeckner-Wald, N., Golec, J.E., Gordon, S., Gralla, M., Gratton, S., Green, D., Groh, J.C., Groppi, C., Guan, Y., Gupta, N., Gudmundsson, J.E., Hagstotz, S., Hargrave, P.

, Haridas, S., Harrington, K., Harrison, I.

, Hasegawa, M., Hasselfield, M., Haynes, V., Hazumi, M., He, A., Healy, E., Henderson, S.W., Hensley, B.S., Hertig, E., Hervías-Caimapo, C., Higuchi, M., Hill, C.A., Hill, J.C., Hilton, G., Hilton, M., Hincks, A.D., Hinshaw, G., Hložek, R., Ho, A.Y.Q., Ho, S., Ho, S.P., Hoang, T.D., Hoh, J., Hornecker, E., Hornsby, A.L., Hotinli, S.C., Huang, Z., Huber, Z.B., Hubmayr, J., Huffenberger, K., Hughes, J.P., Idicherian Lonappan, A., Ikape, M., Irwin, K., Iuliano, J., Jaffe, A. H., Jain, B., Jense, H. T., Jeong, O., Johnson, A., Johnson, B. R., Johnson, M., Jones, M., Jost, B., Kaneko, D., Karpel, E.D., Kasai, Y., Katayama, N., Keating, B., Keller, B., Keskitalo, R., Kim, J., Kisner, T., Kiuchi, K., Klein, J., Knowles, K., Kofman, A.M., Koopman, B.J., Kosowsky, A., Kou, R., Krachmalnicoff, N., Kramer, D., Krishak, A., Krolewski, A., Kusaka, A., Kusiak, A., La Plante, P., La Posta, A., Laguë, A., Lashner, J., Lattanzi, M., Lee, A., Lee, E., Leech, J., Lessler, C., Leung, J.S., Lewis, A., Li, Y., Li, Z., Limon, M., Lin, L., Link, M., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Lonergan, J., Louis, T., Lucas, T., Ludlam, M., Lungu, M., Lyons, M., MacCrann, N., MacInnis, A., Madhavacheril, M., Mak, D., Maldonado, F., Mallaby-Kay, M., Manduca, A., Mangu, A., Mani, H., Maniyar, A.S., Marques, G.A., Mates, J., Matsumura, T., Mauskopf, P., May, A., McCallum, N., McCarrick, H., McCarthy, F., McCulloch, M., McMahon, J., Meerburg, P.D., Mehta, Y., Melin, J., Meyers, J., Middleton, A., Miller, A., Mirmelstein, M., Moodley, K., Moore, J., Morshed, M., Morton, T., Moser, E., Mroczkowski, T., Murata, M., Münchmeyer, M., Naess, S., Nakata, H., Namikawa, T., Nashimoto, M., Nati, F., Natoli, P., Negrello, M.

, Nerval, S. K., Newburgh, L., Nguyen, D. V., Nicola, A., Niemack, M. D., Nishino, H., Nishinomiya, Y., Orlando, A., Orlowski-Scherer, J., Pagano, L., Page, L. A., Pandey, S., Papageorgiou, A., Paraskevakos, I., Partridge, B., Patki, R., Peel, M., Perez Sarmiento, K., Perrotta, F., Phakathi, P., Piccirillo, L., Pierpaoli, E., Pinsonneault-Marotte, T., Pisano, G., Poletti, D., Puddu, R., Puglisi, G., Qu, F.J., Randall, M.J., Ranucci, C., Raum, C., Reeves, R., Reichardt, C.L., Remazeilles, M., Rephaeli, Y., Riechers, D., Robe, J., Robertson, M.F., Robertson, N., Rogers, K., Rojas, F., Romero, A., Rosenberg, E., Rotti, A., Rowe, S., Roy, A., Sadeh, S., Sailer, N., Sakaguri, K., Sakuma, T., Sakurai, Y., Salatino, M., Sanders, G.H., Sasaki, D., Sathyanarayana Rao, M., Satterthwaite, T.P., Saunders, L., Scalcinati, L., Schaan, E., Schmitt, B., Schmittfull, M., Sehgal, N., Seibert, J., Seino, Y., Seljak, U., Shaikh, S., Shaw, E., Shellard, P., Sherwin, B., Shimon, M., Shroyer, J.E., Sierra, C., Sievers, J., Sifón, C., Sikhosana, P., Silva-Feaver, M., Simon, S.M., Sinclair, A., Smith, K., Sohn, W., Song, X., Sonka, R.F., Spergel, D., Spisak, J., Staggs, S. T., Stein, G., Stevens, J. R., Stompor, R., Storer, E., Sudiwala, R.

, Sugiyama, J., Surrao, K. M., Sutariya, S., Suzuki, A., Suzuki, J., Tajima, O., Takakura, S., Takeuchi, A., Tansieri, I., Taylor, A.C., Teply, G., Terasaki, T., Thomas, A., Thomas, D. B., Thornton, R., Trac, H., Tsan, T., Tsang King Sang, E., Tucker, C.

, Ullom, J., Vacher, L., Vale, L., van Engelen, A., Van Lanen, J., van Marrewijk, J., Van Winkle, D. D., Vargas, C., Vavagiakis, E. M., Veenendaal, I., Vergès, C., Vissers, M., Viña, M., Wagoner, K., Walker, S., Walters, L., Wang, Y., Westbrook, B., Williams, J., Williams, P., Winch, H., Wollack, E.J., Wolz, K., Wong, J., Xu, Z., Yamada, K., Young, E., Yu, B., Yu, C., Zannoni, M., Zheng, K., Zhu, N., Zonca, A., Zubeldia, I. and The Simons Observatory collaboration 2025. The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts for the enhanced Large Aperture Telescope. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2025 (8) , 34. 10.1088/1475-7516/2025/08/034

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License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/08/034

Abstract

We describe updated scientific goals for the wide-field, millimeter-wave survey that will be produced by the Simons Observatory (SO). Significant upgrades to the 6-meter SO Large Aperture Telescope (LAT) are expected to be complete by 2028, and will include a doubled mapping speed with 30,000 new detectors and an automated data reduction pipeline. In addition, a new photovoltaic array will supply most of the observatory's power. The LAT survey will cover about 60% of the sky at a regular observing cadence, with five times the angular resolution and ten times the map depth of the Planck satellite. The science goals are to: (1) determine the physical conditions in the early universe and constrain the existence of new light particles; (2) measure the integrated distribution of mass, electron pressure, and electron momentum in the late-time universe, and, in combination with optical surveys, determine the neutrino mass and the effects of dark energy via tomographic measurements of the growth of structure at redshifts z ≲ 3; (3) measure the distribution of electron density and pressure around galaxy groups and clusters, and calibrate the effects of energy input from galaxy formation on the surrounding environment; (4) produce a sample of more than 30,000 galaxy clusters, and more than 100,000 extragalactic millimeter sources, including regularly sampled AGN light-curves, to study these sources and their emission physics; (5) measure the polarized emission from magnetically aligned dust grains in our Galaxy, to study the properties of dust and the role of magnetic fields in star formation; (6) constrain asteroid regoliths, search for Trans-Neptunian Objects, and either detect or eliminate large portions of the phase space in the search for Planet 9; and (7) provide a powerful new window into the transient universe on time scales of minutes to years, concurrent with observations from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory of overlapping sky.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	IOP Publishing
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 August 2025
Date of Acceptance:	2 July 2025
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2025 15:48
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180525

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