The Infrared Array Camera Dark Field: Far-Infrared to X-ray Data

Creators: Krick, J. E.; Surace, J. A.; Thompson, D.; Ashby, M. L. N.; Hora, J.; Gorjian, V.; Yan, L.; Frayer, D. T.; Egami, E.; Lacy, M.

Abstract

We present 20 band photometry from the far-IR to X-ray in the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) dark field. The bias for the near-IR camera on Spitzer is calibrated by observing a ~20' diameter "dark" field near the north ecliptic pole roughly every two-to-three weeks throughout the mission duration of Spitzer. The field is unique for its extreme depth, low background, high quality imaging, time-series information, and accompanying photometry including data taken with Akari, Palomar, MMT, KPNO, Hubble, and Chandra. This serendipitous survey contains the deepest mid-IR data taken to date. This data set is well suited for studies of intermediate-redshift galaxy clusters, high-redshift galaxies, the first generation of stars, and the lowest mass brown dwarfs, among others. This paper provides a summary of the data characteristics and catalog generation from all bands collected to date as well as a discussion of photometric redshifts and initial and expected science results and goals. To illustrate the scientific potential of this unique data set, we also present here IRAC color-color diagrams.

Additional Information

© 2009. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2009 April 16; accepted 2009 September 11; published 2009 October 14. We thank the anonymous referee for useful suggestions on the manuscript. This research has made use of data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This work was based on observations obtained with the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory as part of a continuing collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, NASA/JPL, and Cornell University, the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. Support for program #10521 was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. FLAMINGOS was designed and constructed by the IR instrumentation group (PI: R. Elston) at the University of Florida, Department of Astronomy, with support from NSF grant AST97-31180 and Kitt Peak National Observatory. Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona. Support for this work was provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Chandra Award Number G07-8120 issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of the National Aeronautics Space Administration under contract NAS8-03060. Facilities: Hale (LFC, WIRC, COSMIC), MMT(Megacam, SWIRC), HST (ACS), Spitzer (IRAC, MIPS), Akari, CXO (ACIS), KPNO

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