Misc,
Astro2020 Project White Paper: The Cosmic Accelerometer
(2019)cite arxiv:1907.08271Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures; Submitted as an Astro 2020 Decadal Survey Project White Paper.
Abstract
We propose an experiment, the Cosmic Accelerometer, designed to yield
velocity precision of $1$ cm/s with measurement stability over years to
decades. The first-phase Cosmic Accelerometer, which is at the scale of the
Astro2020 Small programs, will be ideal for precision radial velocity
measurements of terrestrial exoplanets in the Habitable Zone of Sun-like stars.
At the same time, this experiment will serve as the technical pathfinder and
facility core for a second-phase larger facility at the Medium scale, which can
provide a significant detection of cosmological redshift drift on a 6-year
timescale. This larger facility will naturally provide further detection/study
of Earth twin planet systems as part of its external calibration process. This
experiment is fundamentally enabled by a novel low-cost telescope technology
called PolyOculus, which harnesses recent advances in commercial off the shelf
equipment (telescopes, CCD cameras, and control computers) combined with a
novel optical architecture to produce telescope collecting areas equivalent to
standard telescopes with large mirror diameters. Combining a PolyOculus array
with an actively-stabilized high-precision radial velocity spectrograph
provides a unique facility with novel calibration features to achieve the
performance requirements for the Cosmic Accelerometer.
