Physics Colloquium

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is proposed to be a large aperture, wide-field ground-based optical telescope designed to survey the entire visible sky (20,000 square degrees) in six colors every few nights. As such, it will produce an enormous database suitable for a wide variety of scientific investigations ranging from studies of small bodies in the solar system to constraints on the nature of dark energy and dark matter on cosmic scales. A large project team has been assembled at many institutions distributed across the country to design and build this facility. I will report on recent technical progress on the telescope, the 3.2 Gigapixel camera, and the data management
system, all of which present novel technical challenges. Over the past
year, the project has convened a set of science collaborations which have collectively generated a 600-page "LSST Science Book" that details the expected performance characteristics of LSST in addressing a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological problems. Over 250 scientists contributed text to that volume. I will review some of the highlights from the Science Book in the latter half of my talk.