Building the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) - a new paradigm radio telescope to map dark energy

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) will produce the largest volume astronomical survey to date, potentially unlocking the mysteries of the dark-energy driven expansion history of the Universe. The CHIME telescope forms an image of the entire over-head sky each night by digitally processing the information received on a compact array of 2000 radio receivers. Unlike traditional telescopes that mechanically point and observe a small region of the sky, CHIME is able to observe the entire overhead sky without any moving parts by decoding the information received by the stationary radio receiver array.

CHIME will map the universe from z=0.8 to 2.5 for cosmology using the powerful hydrogen intensity mapping technique. It will also be a sensitive detector of transient radio signals, potentially unlocking the mystery of Fast Radio Bursts.

We are currently operating a pathfinder version of CHIME and the full instrument is under construction now. I will describe the CHIME concept, its science potential, and status of commissioning.