The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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Daniel Eisenstein

Center for Astrophysics

Daniel Eisenstein

deisenstein@cfa.harvard.edu

About

Professor Daniel Eisenstein studies cosmology and extragalactic astronomy with a mix of theoretical and observational methods. His dominant focus over the last decade has been on the development of the baryon acoustic oscillation method to measure the cosmic distance scale and study dark energy. He is interested in large statistical problems in astronomy as well as in high-performance computing. He served as Director of Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (2007-2015) and as co-Spokesperson of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (2014-2020). He is a member of the James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera instrument team and the DESI and Euclid consortia and serves on the Board of the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Harvard Ph.D. 1996, Princeton A.B. 1992

Projects

AbacusSummit

Theoretical Astrophysics, Institute for Theory and Computation

AbacusSummit is the world’s largest suite of high-performance cosmological N-body simulations, developed to meet and exceed the analysis requirements of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. These simulations allow one to predict the large-scale structure that results from a wide range of cosmological models, enabling detailed investigations of theories of cosmological structure formation and comparison to the coming decade of observational surveys.

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) consortium is conducting a five-year survey to map the large-scale structure of the Universe over one-third of the sky and 11 billion years of cosmic history, aiming to study the physics of dark energy.

James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES)

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

JADES will use guaranteed time in James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cycle 1 to produce infrared imaging and spectroscopy of unprecedented depth in the two premier extragalactic deep fields, GOODS-South (CDF-S) and GOODS-North (HDF). These data will reveal the early phases of galaxy formation, probing the rest-frame optical spectroscopy and morphology of galaxies from redshifts 2-3 out to z>10. JADES expects to collect data on about 100,000 galaxies, adding to the extensive legacy of these well-studied fields.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

Optical and Infrared Astronomy, Chandra X-ray Center

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey continues its twenty-year legacy of wide-field optical/infrared imaging and spectroscopy, which has led astronomy into the era of large archives and data science. Harvard and Smithsonian are both full institutional members of the latest epoch of the survey, SDSS-V, which started observations in 2020.

Telescopes and Instruments

Magellan Telescopes

The twin Magellan Telescopes in Chile are each 6.5 meter optical telescopes. These telescopes are both equipped with instruments to take images and spectra of light from a wide variety of astronomical sources, including exoplanet systems, star-forming regions, supernova remnants, and interacting galaxies. The Magellan Telescopes — named Baade and Clay — are hosted at the Las Campanas Observatory and are operated by a consortium of institutions, including the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Carnegie Institution for Science, University of Arizona, the University of Michigan, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, CfA scientists and engineers provided a wide field f/5 focal system (including secondary mirror and corrective optics), and a powerful astronomical camera for use at the Clay telescope.

Visit the Magellan Telescopes Website

Giant Magellan Telescope

Is Earth unique, or are there other planets with life in the Milky Way? To answer this question and many others, astronomers need larger and more sensitive observatories than anything we currently have. For that reason, the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian is collaborating with a number of other institutions around the world to create the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), currently under construction in Chile. The GMT will consist of seven large mirrors acting in concert as one giant telescope 80 feet across. That large size provides an unprecedented view of the sky and the ability to detect the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres. Like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the GMT will be a powerful tool across the field of astronomy, providing insights into the formation of planets, the structure of galaxies, and the evolution of the universe itself.

Visit the GMT Website

MMT Observatory

The MMT Observatory is the premier visible-light and infrared telescope jointly managed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the University of Arizona. Located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona, this 6.5-meter (21 foot) telescope is used to study objects across the field of astronomy, from the Solar System to distant galaxies. The MMT has provided a testbed for new telescope technologies developed by scientists and engineers at the CfA and the University of Arizona.

Visit the MMT Website