Establishing a New Technique for Discovering Large-Scale Structure Using the ORELSE Survey
Abstract
The Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large-Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey is an ongoing imaging and spectroscopic campaign initially designed to study the effects of environment on galaxy evolution in high-redshift (z ∼ 1) large-scale structures. We use its rich data in combination with a powerful new technique, Voronoi tessellation Monte Carlo (VMC) mapping, to search for serendipitous galaxy overdensities at 0.55 < z < 1.37 within 15 ORELSE fields, a combined spectroscopic footprint of ∼1.4 deg². Through extensive tests with both observational data and our own mock galaxy catalogues, we optimize the method's many free parameters to maximize its efficacy for general overdensity searches. Our overdensity search yielded 402 new overdensity candidates with precisely measured redshifts and an unprecedented sensitivity down to low total overdensity masses (M_(tot) ≳ 5×10¹³ M⊙). Using the mock catalogues, we estimated the purity and completeness of our overdensity catalogue as a function of redshift, total mass, and spectroscopic redshift fraction, finding impressive levels of both 0.92/0.83 and 0.60/0.49 for purity/completeness at z = 0.8 and z = 1.2, respectively, for all overdensity masses at spectroscopic fractions of ∼20 per cent. With VMC mapping, we are able to measure precise systemic redshifts, provide an estimate of the total gravitating mass, and maintain high levels of purity and completeness at z ∼ 1 even with only moderate levels of spectroscopy. Other methods (e.g. red-sequence overdensities and hot medium reliant detections) begin to fail at similar redshifts, which attests to VMC mapping's potential to be a powerful tool for current and future wide-field galaxy evolution surveys at z ∼ 1 and beyond.
Additional Information
© 2019 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model). Accepted 2019 November 4. Received 2019 September 20; in original form 2019 May 22. Published: 15 November 2019. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1411943. Part of the work presented herein is supported by NASA Grant No, NNX15AK92G. This work was additionally supported by the France-Berkeley Fund, a joint venture between UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de France promoting lasting institutional and intellectual cooperation between France and the United States. DH would like to thank her advisor David Tholen for being able to allocate time to working on a study in an outside field. PFW acknowledges funding through the H2020 ERC Consolidator Grant 683184 and the support of an EACOA Fellowship from the East Asian Core Observatories Association. BCL gratefully acknowledges Gianni Zamorani, Sandro Bardelli, and Elena Zucca for discussions helpful in developing the VMC technique. We also thank the anonymous referee for their helpful contribution. This study is based, in part, on data collected at the Subaru Telescope and obtained from the SMOKA, which is operated by the Astronomy Data Center, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. This work is based, in part, on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. UKIRT is supported by NASA and operated under an agreement among the University of Hawaii, the University of Arizona, and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center; operations are enabled through the cooperation of the East Asian Observatory. When the data reported here were acquired, UKIRT was operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the U.K. This study is also based, in part, on observations obtained with WIRCam, a joint project of CFHT, Taiwan, Korea, Canada, France, and the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France, and the University of Hawai'i. Some portion of the spectrographic data presented herein was based on observations obtained with the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope, Paranal, Chile, under Large Programs 070.A-9007 and 177.A-0837. The remainder of the spectrographic data presented herein were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. We thank the indigenous Hawaiian community for allowing us to be guests on their sacred mountain, a privilege, without which, this work would not have been possible. We are most fortunate to be able to conduct observations from this site.Attached Files
Published - stz3164.pdf
Accepted Version - 1905.09298.pdf
Supplemental Material - stz3164_supplemental_table.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 101635
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200228-100723182
- AST-1411943
- NSF
- NNX15AK92G
- NASA
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Davis
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- 683184
- European Research Council (ERC)
- East Asian Core Observatories Association (EACOA)
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Created
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2020-02-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)