"The Local Volume Mapper"

Abstract: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V began scientific operations last year for its Milky Way and Black Hole "mappers." The remaining mapper to be commissioned is the Local Volume Mapper, which will begin operations early in 2023. Situated at Las Campanas Observatory, the Local Volume Mapper is a spectral-imaging survey of the Milky Way Disk. At scales of about 1 pc in the Milky Way and 10 pc in the Magellanic Clouds, we will observe the entire optical spectrum from [O II], through much of the Balmer Sequence, all the way up to Calcium. Such spectral and spatial resolution will allow us to study star-forming structures, giant molecular clouds, and diffuse interstellar gas, across the entire Milky Way. We will discuss the key science topics of LVM, as well as the current state of the hardware and its design, including the construction of a large facility instrument distributed across a large and international team.