Optical Synoptic Telescopes: New Science Frontiers
  Over the past decade, sky surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have
proven the power of large data sets for answering fundamental astrophysical
questions. This observational progress, based on a synergy of advances in
telescope construction, detectors, and information technology, has had a
dramatic impact on nearly all fields of astronomy, and areas of fundamental
physics. The next-generation instruments, and the surveys that will be made
with them, will maintain this revolutionary progress. The hardware and
computational technical challenges and the exciting science opportunities are
attracting scientists and engineers from astronomy, optics, low-light-level
detectors, high-energy physics, statistics, and computer science. The history
of astronomy has taught us repeatedly that there are surprises whenever we view
the sky in a new way. This will be particularly true of discoveries emerging
from a new generation of sky surveys. Imaging data from large ground-based
active optics telescopes with sufficient etendue can address many scientific
missions simultaneously. These new investigations will rely on the statistical
precision obtainable with billions of objects. For the first time, the full sky
will be surveyed deep and fast, opening a new window on a universe of faint
moving and distant exploding objects as well as unraveling the mystery of dark
energy.
