No Arabic abstract
(abridged) The ESIS survey is the optical follow up of the SWIRE/Spitzer in the ELAIS-S1 region of the sky. In the era of observational cosmology, the main efforts are focused on the study of galaxy evolution and its environmental dependence. Wide area, multiwavelength, extragalactic surveys are needed in order to probe sufficiently large volumes, minimize cosmic variance and find significant numbers of rare objects. We present VIMOS I and z band imaging belonging to the ESIS survey. A total of ~4 deg2 were targeted in I and ~1 deg2 in z. More than 300000 galaxies have been detected in the I band and ~50000 in the z band. Object coordinates are defined within an uncertainty of ~0.2 arcsec r.m.s., with respect to GSC 2.2. We reach a 90% average completeness at 23.1 and 22.5 mag (Vega) in the I and z bands, respectively. On the basis of IRAC colors, we identified galaxies having the 1.6 um stellar peak shifted to z=1-3. The new I, z band data provide reliable constraints to avoid low-redshift interlopers and reinforce this selection. Roughly 1000 galaxies between z=2-3 were identified over the ESIS ~4 deg2, at the SWIRE 5.8 um depth (25.8 uJy at 3sigma). These are the best galaxy candidates to dominate the massive tail (M>1e11 Msun) of the z>2 mass function.
The results of a search for distant clusters of galaxies performed using the I-band data obtained by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) are presented. Cluster candidates are identified using a matched filter algorithm, that provides not only an objective detection criterion, but also the means to estimate the cluster redshift and richness. A preliminary sample of distant clusters has been obtained, containing 252 cluster candidates with estimated redshift in the interval 0.2 < z < 1.3 (median redshift z_med ~ 0.4) over an area of approximately 14 square degrees. The adopted selection criteria for the inclusion of cluster candidates in this sample has been in general conservative, as the primary concern has been the reliability of the candidates rather than the completeness of the sample.
We have conducted sensitive (1 sigma<30 uJy) 1.4 GHz radio observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array of a field largely coincident with infrared observations of the Spitzer Wide-Area Extragalactic Survey. The field is centred on the European Large Area ISO Survey S1 region and has a total area of 3.9 deg. We describe the observations and calibration, source extraction, and cross-matching to infrared sources. Two catalogues are presented; one of the radio components found in the image and one of radio sources with counterparts in the infrared and extracted from the literature. 1366 radio components were grouped into 1276 sources, 1183 of which were matched to infrared sources. We discover 31 radio sources with no infrared counterpart at all, adding to the class of Infrared-Faint Radio Sources.
The ELAIS S1 field was observed by GALEX in both its Wide Spectroscopic and Deep Imaging Survey modes. This field was previously observed by the Infrared Space Observatory and we made use of the catalogue of multi-wavelength data published by the ELAIS consortium to select galaxies common to the two samples. Among the 959 objects with GALEX spectroscopy, 88 are present in the ELAIS catalog and 19 are galaxies with an optical spectroscopic redshift. The distribution of redshifts covers the range $0<z<1.6$. The selected galaxies have bolometric IR luminosities $10<Log(L_{IR})<13$ (deduced from the $15 mu m$ flux using ISOCAM) which means that we cover a wide range of galaxies from normal to Ultra Luminous IR Galaxies. The mean ($sigma$) UV luminosity (not corrected for extinction) amounts to $Log(lambda.L_{1530}) = 9.8 (0.6)$ $L_sun$ for the low-z ($z le 0.35$) sample. The UV slope $beta$ (assuming $f_lambda propto lambda^beta$) correlates with the GALEX FUV-NUV color if the sample is restricted to galaxies below $z < 0.1$. Taking advantage of the UV and IR data, we estimate the dust attenuation from the IR/UV ratio and compare it to the UV slope $beta$. We find that it is not possible to uniquely estimate the dust attenuation from $beta$ for our sample of galaxies. These galaxies are highly extinguished with a median value $A_{FUV} = 2.7 pm 0.8$. Once the dust correction applied, the UV- and IR-based SFRs correlate. For the closest galaxy with the best quality spectrum, we see a feature consistent with being produced by a bump near 220nm in the attenuation curve.
We find a significant number of massive and compact galaxies in clusters from the ESO Distant Clusters Survey (EDisCS) at 0.4<z<1. They have similar stellar masses, ages, sizes and axial ratios to local z~0.04 compact galaxies in WINGS clusters, and to z=1.4-2 massive and passive galaxies found in the general field. If non-BCG cluster galaxies of all densities, morphologies and spectral types are considered, the median size of EDisCS galaxies is only a factor 1.18 smaller than in WINGS. We show that for morphologically selected samples, the morphological evolution taking place in a significant fraction of galaxies during the last Gyrs may introduce an apparent, spurious evolution of size with redshift, which is actually due to intrinsic differences in the selected samples. We conclude that the median mass-size relation of cluster galaxies does not evolve significantly from z~0.7 to z~0.04. In contrast, the masses and sizes of BCGs and galaxies with M*>4x10^11 Msun have significantly increased by a factor of 2 and 4, respectively, confirming the results of a number of recent works on the subject. Our findings show that progenitor bias effects play an important role in the size-growth paradigm of massive and passive galaxies.
We present deep near-infrared JHK imaging of four 10x10 fields. The observations were carried out as part of the Multiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC) with ISPI on the CTIO 4m telescope. The typical point source limiting depths are J~22.5, H~21.5, and K~21 (5sigma; Vega). The effective seeing in the final images is ~1.0. We combine these data with MUSYC UBVRIz imaging to create K-selected catalogs that are unique for their uniform size, depth, filter coverage, and image quality. We investigate the rest-frame optical colors and photometric redshifts of galaxies that are selected using common color selection techniques, including distant red galaxies (DRGs), star-forming and passive BzKs, and the rest-frame UV-selected BM, BX, and Lyman break galaxies (LBGs). These techniques are effective at isolating large samples of high redshift galaxies, but none provide complete or uniform samples across the targeted redshift ranges. The DRG and BM/BX/LBG criteria identify populations of red and blue galaxies, respectively, as they were designed to do. The star-forming BzKs have a very wide redshift distribution, a wide range of colors, and may include galaxies with very low specific star formation rates. In comparison, the passive BzKs are fewer in number, have a different distribution of K magnitudes, and have a somewhat different redshift distribution. By combining these color selection criteria, it appears possible to define a reasonably complete sample of galaxies to our flux limit over specific redshift ranges. However, the redshift dependence of both the completeness and sampled range of rest-frame colors poses an ultimate limit to the usefulness of these techniques.