PHOTOMETRIC SELECTION OF A MASSIVE GALAXY CATALOG WITH z ≥ 0.55

Journal Article · Wed Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 2017 · The Astronomical Journal (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/153/2/58· OSTI ID:22863138

Núñez, Carolina; Ho, Shirley ^[1]

---

1. McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (United States)

We present the development of a photometrically selected massive galaxy catalog, targeting Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) and massive blue galaxies at redshifts of z⩾0.55. Massive galaxy candidates are selected using infrared/optical color–color cuts, with optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and infrared data from “unWISE” forced photometry derived from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The selection method is based on previously developed techniques to select LRGs with z>0.5, and is optimized using receiver operating characteristic curves. The catalog contains 16,191,145 objects, selected over the full SDSS DR10 footprint. The redshift distribution of the resulting catalog is estimated using spectroscopic redshifts from the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey and photometric redshifts from COSMOS. Restframe U − B colors from DEEP2 are used to estimate LRG selection efficiency. Using DEEP2, the resulting catalog has an average redshift of z = 0.65, with a standard deviation of σ=2.0, and an average restframe of U−B=1.0, with a standard deviation of σ=0.27. Using COSMOS, the resulting catalog has an average redshift of z = 0.60, with a standard deviation of σ=1.8. We estimate 34% of the catalog to be blue galaxies with z⩾0.55. An estimated 9.6% of selected objects are blue sources with redshift z<0.55. Stellar contamination is estimated to be 1.8%.

• OSTI ID: 22863138
• Journal Information: The Astronomical Journal (Online), Journal Name: The Astronomical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 153; ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
CATALOGS
COLOR
COSMOLOGY
DATA ANALYSIS
DIAGRAMS
DISTANCE
DISTRIBUTION
GALAXIES
INFRARED SURVEYS
PHOTOMETRY
RED SHIFT
UNIVERSE