Status and recent results of the Dark Energy Survey

Abstract

The current standard model of cosmology has a solid observational basis, but lacks a full understanding of nearly 95% of the matter-energy content of the universe, that corresponds to two exotic entities: dark matter and dark energy. Currently, a large international scientific effort pursues the goal of unveiling the physical nature of the dark components of the Universe. One of the most imprtant projects in this effort is the Dark Energy Survey (DES), an optical and near infrared survey that is imaging 5000 deg$^2$ of the southern celestial hemisphere in five broad bandpass filters, to study the properties of the mysterious dark energy. The survey observations started in 2012, with the science verification run. DES will study the dark energy properties using four independent methods: galaxy clusters counts and distributions, weak gravitational lensing tomography, baryon acoustic oscillations and supernovae Ia distances. Obtaining the four measurements from the same data set will allow a strict control of the systematic uncertainties to obtain a robust and precise determination of the cosmological parameters. Here, some recent scientific results of the project, based on science verification data are presented.