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Title: The high-mass end of the red sequence at z ~ 0.55 from SDSS-III/BOSS: completeness, bimodality and luminosity function

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [2];  [4];  [4];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [3];  [5];  [3];  [6]
  1. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
  2. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  3. Univ. Autonoma de Madrid (Spain); Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Madrid (Spain)
  4. Univ. of Portsmouth (United Kingdom)
  5. Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (China)
  6. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
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The history of the expanding universe is encoded in the large-scale distribution of galaxies throughout space. By mapping out the three-dimensional locations of millions of galaxies with powerful telescopes, we can directly measure this expansion history. When interpreted using Einstein's theory of gravity, this expansion history lets us infer the contents of the universe, including the amount and nature of "dark energy", an as-yet unexplained energy density associated with the empty vacuum of space. However, to make these measurements and inferences accurately, we must understand and control for a large number of experimental effects. This paper develops a novel method for large cosmological galaxy surveys, and applies it to data from the "BOSS" experiment of the Third Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This method enables an accurate statistical characterization of the "completeness" of the BOSS experiment: the probability that a given galaxy at a given place in the universe is actually detected and successfully measured. It also enables the accurate determination of the underlying demographics of the galaxy population being studied by the experiment. These two ingredients can then be used to make a more accurate comparison between the results of the experiment and the theoretical models that predict the observable effects of dark energy.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0010331
OSTI ID:
1419923
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: 19 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (6)

Characterizing circumgalactic gas around massive ellipticals at z ∼ 0.4 – I. Initial results★ journal March 2018
A semi-analytical perspective on massive galaxies at z ∼ 0.55 journal March 2019
The Incomplete Conditional Stellar Mass Function: Unveiling the Stellar Mass Functions of Galaxies at 0.1 < Z < 0.8 from BOSS Observations journal May 2018
Evolution of Star-forming Galaxies from z = 0.7 to 1.2 with eBOSS Emission-line Galaxies journal January 2019
The Dependence of Galaxy Clustering on Stellar-mass Assembly History for LRGs journal October 2017
The Incomplete Conditional Stellar Mass Function: Unveiling the Stellar Mass Functions of Galaxies at 0.1 < Z < 0.8 from BOSS Observations text January 2018

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