Euclid preparation. XVI. Exploring the ultra-low surface brightness Universe with Euclid/VIS

Creators: Borlaff, A. S.; Gómez-Alvarez, P.; Altieri, B.; Marcum, P. M.; Vavrek, R.; Laureijs, R.; Kohley, R.; Buitrago, F.; Cuillandre, J.-C.; Duc, P.-A.; Gaspar Venancio, L. M.; Amara, A.; Andreon, S.; Auricchio, N.; Azzollini, R.; Baccigalupi, C.; Balaguera-Antolínez, A.; Baldi, M.; Bardelli, S.; Bender, R.; Biviano, A.; Bodendorf, C.; Bonino, D.; Bozzo, E.; Branchini, E.; Brescia, M.; Brinchmann, J.; Burigana, C.; Cabanac, R.; Camera, S.; Candini, G. P.; Capobianco, V.; Cappi, A.; Carbone, C.; Carretero, J.; Carvalho, C. S.; Casas, S.; Castander, F. J.; Castellano, M.; Castignani, G.; Cavuoti, S.; Cimatti, A.; Cledassou, R.; Colodro-Conde, C.; Congedo, G.; Conselice, C. J.; Conversi, L.; Copin, Y.; Corcione, L.; Coupon, J.; Courtois, H. M.; Cropper, M.; Da Silva, A.; Degaudenzi, H.; Di Ferdinando, D.; Douspis, M.; Dubath, F.; Duncan, C. A. J.; Dupac, X.; Dusini, S.; Ealet, A.; Fabricius, M.; Farina, M.; Farrens, S.; Ferreira, P. G.; Ferriol, S.; Finelli, F.; Flose-Reimberg, P.; Fosalba, P.; Frailis, M.; Franceschi, E.; Fumana, M.; Galeotta, S.; Ganga, K.; Garilli, B.; Gillis, B.; Giocoli, C.; Gozaliasl, G.; Graciá-Carpio, J.; Grazian, A.; Grupp, F.; Haugan, S. V. H.; Holmes, W.; Hormuth, F.; Jahnke, K.; Keihanen, E.; Kermiche, S.; Kiessling, A.; Kilbinger, M.; Kirkpatrick, C. C.; Kitching, T.; Knapen, J. H.; Kubik, B.; Kümmel, M.; Kunz, M.; Kurki-Suonio, H.; Liebing, P.; Ligori, S.; Lilje, P. B.; Lindholm, V.; Lloro, I.; Mainetti, G.; Maino, D.; Mansutti, O.; Marggraf, O.; Markovic, K.; Martinelli, M.; Martinet, N.; Martínez-Delgado, D.; Marulli, F.; Massey, R.; Maturi, M.; Maurogordato, S.; Medinaceli, E.; Mei, S.; Meneghetti, M.; Merlin, E.; Metcalf, R. B.; Meylan, G.; Moresco, M.; Morgante, G.; Moscardini, L.; Munari, E.; Nakajima, R.; Neissner, C.; Niemi, S. M.; Nightingale, J. W.; Nucita, A.; Padilla, C.; Paltani, S.; Pasian, F.; Patrizii, L.; Pedersen, K.; Percival, W. J.; Pettorino, V.; Pires, S.; Poncet, M.; Popa, L.; Potter, D.; Pozzetti, L.; Raison, F.; Rebolo, R.; Renzi, A.; Rhodes, J.; Riccio, G.; Romelli, E.; Roncarelli, M.; Rosset, C.; Rossetti, E.; Saglia, R.; Sánchez, A. G.; Sapone, D.; Sauvage, M.; Schneider, P.; Scottez, V.; Secroun, A.; Seidel, G.; Serrano, S.; Sirignano, C.; Sirri, G.; Skottfelt, J.; Stanco, L.; Starck, J. L.; Sureau, F.; Tallada-Crespí, P.; Taylor, A. N.; Tenti, M.; Tereno, I.; Teyssier, R.; Toledo-Moreo, R.; Torradeflot, F.; Tutusaus, I.; Valentijn, E. A.; Valenziano, L.; Valiviita, J.; Vassallo, T.; Viel, M.; Wang, Y.; Weller, J.; Whittaker, L.; Zacchei, A.; Zamorani, G.; Zucca, E.; Euclid Collaboration

Abstract

Context. While Euclid is an ESA mission specifically designed to investigate the nature of dark energy and dark matter, the planned unprecedented combination of survey area (∼15 000 deg²), spatial resolution, low sky-background, and depth also make Euclid an excellent space observatory for the study of the low surface brightness Universe. Scientific exploitation of the extended low surface brightness structures requires dedicated calibration procedures that are yet to be tested. Aims. We investigate the capabilities of Euclid to detect extended low surface brightness structure by identifying and quantifying sky-background sources and stray-light contamination. We test the feasibility of generating sky flat-fields to reduce large-scale residual gradients in order to reveal the extended emission of galaxies observed in the Euclid survey. Methods. We simulated a realistic set of Euclid/VIS observations, taking into account both instrumental and astronomical sources of contamination, including cosmic rays, stray-light, zodiacal light, interstellar medium, and the cosmic infrared background, while simulating the effects of background sources in the field of view. Results. We demonstrate that a combination of calibration lamps, sky flats, and self-calibration would enable recovery of emission at a limiting surface brightness magnitude of μ_(lim) = 29.5_(−0.27)^(+0.08) mag arcsec⁻² (3σ, 10 × 10 arcsec²) in the Wide Survey, and it would reach regions deeper by 2 mag in the Deep Surveys. Conclusions. Euclid/VIS has the potential to be an excellent low surface brightness observatory. Covering the gap between pixel-to-pixel calibration lamp flats and self-calibration observations for large scales, the application of sky flat-fielding will enhance the sensitivity of the VIS detector at scales larger than 1″, up to the size of the field of view, enabling Euclid to detect extended surface brightness structures below μ_(lim) = 31 mag arcsec⁻² and beyond.

Additional Information

© ESO 2022. Received: 2 August 2021 Accepted: 18 August 2021. The authors thank Françoise Combes, Emmanuel Bertin, and Mischa Schirmer for the provided input that helped to improve this publication significantly. We thank Koryo Okumura for his help with the stray-light modeling and prediction methods. We also thank Matthieu Marseille, Ruyman Azzollini, Stefano Andreon, Henry Joy McCracken and Kenneth Ganga for their contributions and comments to this manuscript. We give special thanks to Jason Rhodes and Jean-Gabriel Cuby for their support. Without your insight and feedback this project would have never been possible to finish. A. B. also thanks Michael Fanelli for his support and interesting comments on the project. A. B. was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the NASA Ames Research Center, administered by Universities Space Research Association under contract with NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA), through the European Space Astronomy Center Faculty. We acknowledge a number of agencies and institutes that have supported the development of Euclid, in particular the Academy of Finland, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Belgian Science Policy, the Canadian Euclid Consortium, the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, the Danish Space Research Institute, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the Netherlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie, the Norwegian Space Agency, the Romanian Space Agency, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at the Swiss Space Office (SSO), and the United Kingdom Space Agency. A complete and detailed list is available on the Euclid website (http://www.euclid-ec.org). This work has made use of data from the ESA mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. This research made use of NumPy (Van Der Walt et al. 2011), Astropy, a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013). All of the figures on this publication were generated using Matplotlib (Hunter 2007). This work was partly done using GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro, ascl.net/1801.009) version 0.11.22-dc86.

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