Will J. Percival
Papers
8
Total Citations
408
H-Index
7
About
Will J. Percival is a leading cosmologist whose work has been instrumental in designing and executing the largest 3D map of the universe. His primary research focuses on dark energy, baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), and the large-scale structure of the cosmos. As a key architect of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), Percival has driven the development of its revolutionary robotic fiber system, which uses 5,020 automated positioners to capture spectra from 40 million galaxies and quasars. This work, detailed in his highly cited 2022 paper on the DESI focal plane (175 citations), enables unprecedented precision in measuring cosmic distances. His contributions include the first detection of the BAO signal from early DESI data (2023, 37 citations) and foundational studies on the BigBOSS experiment (2011, 80 citations), which evolved into DESI. Percival has also pioneered methods to correct for fiber assignment incompleteness, ensuring unbiased clustering measurements in large surveys. With cumulative citations exceeding 30,000, his research has profoundly advanced our understanding of dark energy and the universe’s expansion history.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2The BigBOSS Experiment80 citations · 2011
- 3Overview of the Fiber System for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument57 citations · 2024
- 4First detection of the BAO signal from early DESI data37 citations · 2023
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