The Dark Energy Survey

Dark Energy is the dominant constituent of the universe and we have little understanding of it. We describe a new project aimed at measuring the dark energy equation of state parameter, w, to a statistical precision of ~5% with four separate techniques. The survey will image 5000 deg2 in the southern sky and collect 300 million galaxies, 30,000 galaxy clusters, and 2000 Type Ia supernovae. The survey will be carried out using a new 3 deg2 mosaic camera mounted at the prime focus of the 4m Blanco telescope at CTIO.