Science Goals

With SPLASH, we aim to understand the physics of galaxy formation and growth and its connection to large-scale structure during the early stages of our universe.
SPLASH enables us to constrain the initial mass function at high redshifts, shed light on the physics of supernovae and AGN, and use infrared background fluctuations to probe re-ionization.

The immediate science goals of SPLASH are:

Measure the stellar masses and redshifts for ~10⁶ galaxies and link their luminosity, mass, and specific star-formation rates to their dark matter haloes (via clustering).
Measure stellar mass and redshifts for 10-17 progenitors of present-day galaxy clusters and 100-170 significant over-densities containing >10⁴ galaxies at 4 < z < 7.
Estimate the Hα emission of galaxies at z>4 to test the importance of cold gas accretion vs. merger powered star-formation.
Measure infrared background fluctuations to probe re-ionization
Constrain the rate of super-luminous supernovae to constrain the initial stellar mass function at high-z.
Use transient studies to find AGNs and supernovae.
Provide a wealth of legacy science for decades that can be followed up by the James Webb Space Telescope or the next generation of ground based telescopes.