skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: redMaGiC: Selecting luminous red galaxies from the DES Science Verification data

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [7];  [2];  [8];  [7];  [9];  [4];  [7];  [10];  [11];  [7];  [12];  [2] more »;  [13];  [14];  [15];  [16];  [17];  [4];  [18];  [19];  [13];  [20];  [21];  [22];  [12];  [23];  [7];  [24];  [25];  [26];  [12];  [4];  [27];  [4];  [25];  [28];  [29];  [16];  [30];  [8];  [10];  [31];  [32];  [12];  [7];  [33];  [34];  [14];  [10];  [30];  [30];  [25];  [35];  [36];  [13];  [12];  [37];  [14];  [38];  [39];  [2];  [10];  [40];  [41];  [25];  [42];  [8];  [12];  [43];  [30];  [44];  [45];  [13];  [46];  [47];  [8];  [12];  [25];  [14] « less
  1. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  2. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain)
  4. Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai, Barcelona (Spain)
  5. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), Redfern, NSW (Australia); Univ. of Queensland (Australia)
  6. Ludwig-Maximilians Univ. Munchen, Munchen (Germany)
  7. Univ. College London, London (United Kingdom)
  8. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, La Serena (Chile)
  9. Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  10. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  11. Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, Paris (France)
  12. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
  13. Univ. of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom)
  14. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Observatorio Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  15. Univ. of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN (United States)
  16. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States); National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States)
  17. Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain); Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai, Barcelona (Spain)
  18. Australian National Univ., Canberra, ACT (Australia)
  19. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  20. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), Redfern, NSW (Australia); Univ. of Queensland, Queensland (Australia)
  21. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
  22. Excellence Cluster Universe, Garching (Germany); Ludwig-Maximilians Univ., Munich (Germany)
  23. Ludwig-Maximilians Univ. Munchen, Munchen (Germany); Excellence Cluster Universe, Garching (Germany)
  24. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States); California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  25. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  26. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astonomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  27. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
  28. Swinburne Univ. of Technology (Australia)
  29. Ludwig-Maximilians Univ. Munchen, Munchen (Germany); Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching (Germany)
  30. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  31. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  32. Australian Astronomical Observatory, North Ryde, NSW (Australia)
  33. ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), Redfern, NSW (Australia); Australian Astronomical Observatory, North Ryde, NSW (Australia)
  34. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Univ. de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
  35. Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain); Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona (Spain)
  36. Excellence Cluster Univ., Garching (Germany); Ludwig-Maximilians Univ., Munich (Germany); Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching (Germany)
  37. Univ. of Queensland, Queensland (Australia)
  38. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  39. Univ. of Sussex, Brighton (United Kingdom)
  40. Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), Madrid (Spain)
  41. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  42. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States); Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Madrid (Spain)
  43. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  44. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States)
  45. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States)
  46. ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), Redfern, NSW (Australia); Swineburne Univ. of Technology, VIC (Australia)
  47. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Here, we introduce redMaGiC, an automated algorithm for selecting luminous red galaxies (LRGs). The algorithm was specifically developed to minimize photometric redshift uncertainties in photometric large-scale structure studies. redMaGiC achieves this by self-training the colour cuts necessary to produce a luminosity-thresholded LRG sample of constant comoving density. We demonstrate that redMaGiC photo-zs are very nearly as accurate as the best machine learning-based methods, yet they require minimal spectroscopic training, do not suffer from extrapolation biases, and are very nearly Gaussian. We apply our algorithm to Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification (SV) data to produce a redMaGiC catalogue sampling the redshift range z ϵ [0.2, 0.8]. Our fiducial sample has a comoving space density of 10–3 (h–1 Mpc)–3, and a median photo-z bias (zspec – zphoto) and scatter (σz/(1 + z)) of 0.005 and 0.017, respectively. The corresponding 5σ outlier fraction is 1.4 per cent. We also test our algorithm with Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 8 and Stripe 82 data, and discuss how spectroscopic training can be used to control photo-z biases at the 0.1 per cent level.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); University of Chicago - Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics; Ohio State University
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1371551
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 461, Issue 2; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 119 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (65)

The Seventh data Release of the Sloan Digital sky Survey journal May 2009
A comparison of six photometric redshift methods applied to 1.5 million luminous red galaxies: Photometric redshifts for 1.5 million LRGs journal September 2011
The Tenth data Release of the Sloan Digital sky Survey: First Spectroscopic data from the Sdss-Iii Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment journal March 2014
The Eighth data Release of the Sloan Digital sky Survey: First data from Sdss-Iii journal March 2011
THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY COADD: 275 deg 2 OF DEEP SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY IMAGING ON STRIPE 82 journal September 2014
Bayesian Photometric Redshift Estimation journal June 2000
SExtractor: Software for source extraction journal June 1996
K -Corrections and Filter Transformations in the Ultraviolet, Optical, and Near-Infrared journal January 2007
Galaxy Clusters Discovered via the Sunyaev-Zel'Dovich Effect in the 2500-Square-Degree Spt-Sz Survey journal January 2015
Using neural networks to estimate redshift distributions. An application to CFHTLenS journal March 2015
High-velocity outflows from young star-forming galaxies in the UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey journal May 2013
Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003 journal October 2003
Creating Spectral Templates from Multicolor Redshift Surveys journal September 2000
The 10 Meter South Pole Telescope
  • Carlstrom, J. E.; Ade, P. A. R.; Aird, K. A.
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 123, Issue 903 https://doi.org/10.1086/659879
journal May 2011
The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: spectra and redshifts journal December 2001
ANN z : Estimating Photometric Redshifts Using Artificial Neural Networks journal April 2004
The Arizona CDFS Environment Survey (ACES): A Magellan/IMACS Spectroscopic Survey of the Chandra Deep Field-South: Arizona CDFS Environment Survey (ACES) journal August 2012
Multidimensional indexing tools for the virtual observatory journal October 2007
The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of Sdss-Iii journal December 2012
The Blanco Cosmology Survey: data Acquisition, Processing, Calibration, Quality Diagnostics, and data Release journal September 2012
The Dark Energy Survey Camera (DECam) journal January 2012
Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): survey diagnostics and core data release: GAMA journal March 2011
Spectroscopic Target Selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample journal November 2001
Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large‐Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies journal November 2005
The dark Energy Camera journal October 2015
The Vimos VLT deep survey: Global properties of 20 000 galaxies in the journal June 2008
The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Survey (VIPERS): First Data Release of 57 204 spectroscopic measurements journal January 2014
HEALPix: A Framework for High‐Resolution Discretization and Fast Analysis of Data Distributed on the Sphere journal April 2005
SkyNet: an efficient and robust neural network training tool for machine learning in astronomy journal May 2014
Feature importance for machine learning redshifts applied to SDSS galaxies journal March 2015
Data augmentation for machine learning redshifts applied to Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies journal April 2015
The skewness of the aperture mass statistic journal July 2004
The DES Science Verification weak lensing shear catalogues journal May 2016
Weighing the Giants – II. Improved calibration of photometry from stellar colours and accurate photometric redshifts journal February 2014
The sizes, masses and specific star formation rates of massive galaxies at 1.3 < z < 1.5: strong evidence in favour of evolution via minor mergers journal November 2012
A Simplex Method for Function Minimization journal January 1965
R[SUB]nu[/SUB]-dependent optical and near-ultraviolet extinction journal February 1994
Ameliorating systematic uncertainties in the angular clustering of galaxies: a study using the SDSS-III: Ameliorating systematic uncertainties in w(θ) journal September 2011
redMaPPer – IV. Photometric membership identification of red cluster galaxies with 1 per cent precision journal August 2015
redMaPPer. I. ALGORITHM AND SDSS DR8 CATALOG journal April 2014
The Redmapper Galaxy Cluster Catalog from des Science Verification data journal May 2016
Photometric redshift analysis in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data journal October 2014
The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) journal February 2006
Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Early Data Release journal January 2002
The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: galaxy clustering measurements in the low-redshift sample of Data Release 11 journal April 2014
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary journal September 2000
OzDES multifibre spectroscopy for the Dark Energy Survey: first-year operation and results journal July 2015
The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey text January 2009
The seventh data release of the sloan digital sky survey text January 2009
Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): survey diagnostics and core data release text January 2010
The Blanco Cosmology Survey: Data Acquisition, Processing, Calibration, Quality Diagnostics and Data Release text January 2012
The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III text January 2012
Weighing the Giants II: Improved Calibration of Photometry from Stellar Colors and Accurate Photometric Redshifts text January 2012
redMaPPer I: Algorithm and SDSS DR8 Catalog text January 2013
High velocity outflows from young star-forming galaxies in the UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey text January 2013
The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Survey (VIPERS): First Data Release of 57 204 spectroscopic measurements text January 2013
The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: galaxy clustering measurements in the low redshift sample of Data Release 11 text January 2014
Feature importance for machine learning redshifts applied to SDSS galaxies text January 2014
The DES Science Verification Weak Lensing Shear Catalogues text January 2015
Spectroscopic Target Selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample text January 2001
Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003 text January 2003
ANNz: estimating photometric redshifts using artificial neural networks text January 2003
HEALPix -- a Framework for High Resolution Discretization, and Fast Analysis of Data Distributed on the Sphere text January 2004
Bayesian photometric redshift estimation text January 1998
Creating Spectral Templates from Multicolor Redshift Surveys text January 1999

Cited By (61)

Photometric redshifts for the Kilo-Degree Survey: Machine-learning analysis with artificial neural networks journal August 2018
The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts journal February 2019
Cosmic troublemakers: the Cold Spot, the Eridanus supervoid, and the Great Walls journal July 2016
cosmolike – cosmological likelihood analyses for photometric galaxy surveys journal May 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year-1 results: galaxy mock catalogues for BAO journal May 2018
Unveiling galaxy bias via the halo model, KiDS, and GAMA journal June 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: A Precise H0 Estimate from DES Y1, BAO, and D/H Data journal July 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: weak lensing shape catalogues journal August 2018
Emulating galaxy clustering and galaxy–galaxy lensing into the deeply non-linear regime: methodology, information, and forecasts journal August 2018
Cosmological simulations for combined-probe analyses: covariance and neighbour-exclusion bias journal August 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: calibration of redMaGiC redshift distributions in DES and SDSS from cross-correlations journal September 2018
Dark Energy Survey year 1 results: galaxy sample for BAO measurement journal September 2018
Studying galaxy troughs and ridges using weak gravitational lensing with the Kilo-Degree Survey journal September 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: weak lensing mass calibration of redMaPPer galaxy clusters journal October 2018
Measuring linear and non-linear galaxy bias using counts-in-cells in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data journal October 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: cross-correlation redshifts – methods and systematics characterization journal February 2018
Cross-correlation redshift calibration without spectroscopic calibration samples in DES Science Verification Data journal March 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: redshift distributions of the weak-lensing source galaxies journal April 2018
Luminous red galaxies in the Kilo-Degree Survey: selection with broad-band photometry and weak lensing measurements journal May 2019
Cosmological lensing ratios with DES Y1, SPT, and Planck journal May 2019
On the relative bias of void tracers in the Dark Energy Survey journal May 2019
Cosmic distance determination from photometric redshift samples using BAO peaks only journal June 2019
The PAU Survey: early demonstration of photometric redshift performance in the COSMOS field journal January 2019
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: constraints on intrinsic alignments and their colour dependence from galaxy clustering and weak lensing journal August 2019
Producing a BOSS CMASS sample with DES imaging journal September 2019
Dark Energy Survey year 1 results: the relationship between mass and light around cosmic voids journal October 2019
Optimizing galaxy samples for clustering measurements in photometric surveys journal November 2019
More out of less: an excess integrated Sachs–Wolfe signal from supervoids mapped out by the Dark Energy Survey journal February 2019
Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey journal July 2018
Mass Calibration of Optically Selected DES Clusters Using a Measurement of CMB-cluster Lensing with SPTpol Data journal February 2019
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Detection of Intracluster Light at Redshift ∼ 0.25 journal April 2019
The DES Bright Arcs Survey: Hundreds of Candidate Strongly Lensed Galaxy Systems from the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification and Year 1 Observations journal September 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: The Photometric Data Set for Cosmology journal April 2018
An Extended Catalog of Galaxy–Galaxy Strong Gravitational Lenses Discovered in DES Using Convolutional Neural Networks journal July 2019
The Simons Observatory: Science goals and forecasts text January 2019
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Photometric Data Set for Cosmology text January 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Calibration of redMaGiC redshift distributions in DES and SDSS from cross-correlations text January 2018
Cross-Correlation Redshift Calibration Without Spectroscopic Calibration Samples in DES Science Verification Data text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cosmological Constraints from Galaxy Clustering and Weak Lensing text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Photometric Data Set for Cosmology text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Redshift distributions of the weak lensing source galaxies text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Galaxy-Galaxy Lensing text January 2017
Photometric redshifts for the Kilo-Degree Survey. Machine-learning analysis with artificial neural networks text January 2017
Emulating galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing into the deeply nonlinear regime: methodology, information, and forecasts text January 2017
Density split statistics: Cosmological constraints from counts and lensing in cells in DES Y1 and SDSS data text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: A Precise H0 Measurement from DES Y1, BAO, and D/H Data text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Weak Lensing Mass Calibration of redMaPPer Galaxy Clusters text January 2018
Cosmological Simulations for Combined-Probe Analyses: Covariance and Neighbour-Exclusion Bias text January 2018
On the relative bias of void tracers in the Dark Energy Survey text January 2018
Measuring Linear and Non-linear Galaxy Bias Using Counts-in-Cells in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification Data text January 2018
The Simons Observatory: Science goals and forecasts text January 2018
Mass Calibration of Optically Selected DES clusters using a Measurement of CMB-Cluster Lensing with SPTpol Data text January 2018
Cosmological Constraints from Multiple Probes in the Dark Energy Survey text January 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Constraints on Intrinsic Alignments and their Colour Dependence from Galaxy Clustering and Weak Lensing text January 2018
More out of less: an excess integrated Sachs-Wolfe signal from supervoids mapped out by the Dark Energy Survey text January 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: Detection of Intra-cluster Light at Redshift $\sim$ 0.25 text January 2018
Cosmic distance determination from photometric redshift samples using BAO peaks only text January 2019
Constraints on the redshift evolution of astrophysical feedback with Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect cross-correlations text January 2019
Producing a BOSS-CMASS sample with DES imaging text January 2019
Optimizing galaxy samples for clustering measurements in photometric surveys text January 2019
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: The relationship between mass and light around cosmic voids text January 2019

Similar Records

redMaGiC: selecting luminous red galaxies from the DES Science Verification data
Journal Article · Mon May 30 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · OSTI ID:1371551
Measuring Cosmological Parameters with Type Ia Supernovae in redMaGiC Galaxies
Journal Article · Thu Oct 13 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · The Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:1371551
+82 more
Cosmic voids and void lensing in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data
Journal Article · Wed Oct 26 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · OSTI ID:1371551
+69 more

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
methods: statistical
techniques: photometric
galaxies: general