The Deep Synoptic Array (DSA): Revolutionizing Access to the Radio Sky

The Deep Synoptic Array (DSA) is part of the newly established Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System. The DSA is designed to be a world-leading radio survey telescope and multi-messenger discovery engine in Nevada, observing in the L (0.7-2 GHz) band, with key surveys planned starting in 2029. The survey speed of the DSA will be unmatched among current or planned radio telescopes. This is enabled by a design highly optimized for surveys, and by two breakthrough technologies. The first is a low-cost antenna outfitted with ambient-temperature receivers and the second is a new generation of digital back-ends called a “radio camera” that produces images in real time. The DSA will survey ~31,000 square degrees to 500 nJy, increasing the radio source population 100-fold, detecting 1 billion star-forming galaxies and active super-massive black holes, while simultaneously observing the neutral-hydrogen kinematics and contents of several million galaxies. In the time domain, the DSA will discover ~100,000 FRBs, >20,000 new pulsars, ~1 million image plane transients (Galactic and extra-galactic), and will carry out multi-year timing of 200 pulsars for nanoHz gravitational wave detection. I will discuss the four central science themes addressed by the DSA — multi-messenger astronomy, our cosmic history, time domain astronomy, and the dark sector. Together with other ongoing all-sky surveys, the DSA will have a major impact on multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics, and on the study of our cosmic history.