On the day of the Brexit outcome, so disastrous for Europe and the UK, there is at least good news for the cosmological community: CFIS, the Canada-France Imaging Survey, has been accepted! This survey consists of two parts. The WIQD(Wide Image Quality Deep) part will cover 5,000 deg2 of the Northern sky, observed in the r-band with the CFHT (Canada-France Hawai’i telescope). The u-band will cover 10,000 deg2 to a lower depth, and is part of LUAU (Legacy for the U-band All-sky Universe). 271 nights are granted, observations will start in 8 months from now.
CFIS will allow us to study properties of dark-matter structures, including filaments between galaxy clusters and groups, stripping of dark-matter halos of satellite galaxies in clusters, and the shapes of dark-matter halos. In addition, the laws of gravity on large scales will be tested, and modifications to Einstein’s theory of general relativity will be looked for. CFIS will observe a very large number of distant, high-redshift galaxies, and will use techniques of galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing to achieve its goals.
In addition, CFIS will create synergie with other ongoing and planned surveys: CFIS will provide ground-based optical data for Euclid photometric-redshifts. It will produce a very useful imaging data set for target selection for spectroscopic surveys such as DESI, WEAVE, and MSE. It will further provide optical data of galaxy clusters that will enhance the science outcome of the X-ray mission eRosita.
PIs: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CEA Saclay/France) & Alan McConnachie (Victoria/Canada).
CosmoStat participants: Martin Kilbinger, Jean-Luc Starck. Sandrine Pires.
Irfu participants: Monique Arnaud, Hervé Aussel, Olivier Boulade, Pierre-Alain Duc, David Elbaz, Christophe Magneville, Yannick Mellier, Marguerite Pierre, Anand Raichoor, Jim Rich, Vanina Ruhlmann-Kleider, Marc Sauvage, Christophe Yèche.
