The VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey: ~10 000 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts to study galaxy assembly at early epochs 2 < z ≃ 6

By O. Fèvre, L. Tasca, P. Cassata, Bianca Garilli, V. Brun, D. Maccagni, L. Pentericci, R. Thomas, E. Vanzella, G. Zamorani and 35 more. 2014

246 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey (VUDS), a spectroscopic redshift survey of ∼10 000 very faint galaxies to study the major phase of galaxy assembly 2 < z ≃ 6. The survey covers 1 deg^2 in 3 separate fields: COSMOS, ECDFS and VVDS-02h, with targets selection based on an inclusive combination of photometric redshifts and color properties. Spectra covering 3650 < λ < 9350A are obtained with VIMOS on the ESO-VLT with integration times of 14h. Here we present the survey strategy, the target selection, the data processing, as well as the redshift measurement process, emphasizing the specific methods adapted to this high redshift range. The spectra quality and redshift reliability are discussed, and we derive a completeness in redshift measurement of 91%, or 74% for the most reliable measurements, down to i_(AB) = 25, and measurements are performed all the way down to i_(AB) = 27. The redshift distribution of the main sample peaks at z = 3 − 4 and extends over a large redshift range mainly in 2 < z < 6. At 3 < z < 5, the galaxies cover a large range of luminosities −23 < M_(NUV) < −20.5, stellar mass 10^9M_⊙ < M_∗ < 10^(11)M_⊙, and star formation rates 1 M_⊙/yr< S FR < 10^3M_⊙/yr. We discuss the spectral properties of galaxies using individual as well as stacked spectra. The comparison between spectroscopic and photometric redshifts as well as color selection demonstrate the effectiveness of our selection scheme. With ∼ 6000 galaxies with reliable spectroscopic redshifts in 2 < z < 6 expected when complete, this survey is the largest at these redshifts and offers the opportunity for unprecedented studies of the star-forming galaxy population and its distribution in large scale structures during the major phase of galaxy assembly.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Citations in the corpus

• THE CHANDRA COSMOS LEGACY SURVEY: OPTICAL/IR IDENTIFICATIONS (2015, background): “The catalog in- cludes redshifts from SDSS (DR12), VIMOS (zCOSMOS: Lilly et al. 2007, Lilly et al. 2009; VUDS: Le Fevre et al. 2015), MOSFIRE (Scoville et al. 2015 in prep; MOSDEF: Kriek et al. 2015), several years of DEIMOS observations from multiple observing programs (e.g. Kartaltepe et al.…”
• COSMOS2020: A Panchromatic View of the Universe to z ∼ 10 from Two Complementary Catalogs (2021, methodology): “A large number of follow-up programs have been conducted, including extensive spectroscopic coverage (e.g., Lilly et al. 2007; Le Fèvre et al. 2015; van der Wel et al. 2016; Hasinger et al. 2018), integral field spectroscopy (e.g., Förster Schreiber et al. 2009), and ALMA observations (Scoville…”
• The realm of the galaxy protoclusters (2016, background): “The VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey (VUDS; Le Fèvre et al., 2015) is currently the largest spectroscopic survey (in terms of spectra per square degree) capable of sampling the cosmic web at high redshift (z ' 2−6) with a sampling that is sufficiently dense and uniform to uncover a wide range of structures…”
• The Keck Lyman Continuum Spectroscopic Survey (KLCS): The Emergent Ionizing Spectrum of Galaxies at z ∼ 3 (2018, methodology): “The most directly comparable, in that the results involve composite spectral stacks, have been discussed by Marchi et al. 2017a,b, using spectra obtained as part of the VUDS Survey (Le Fèvre et al. 2015).”
• The MUSE 3D view of the Hubble Deep Field South (2014, background): “…variance, one can compare the measured redshift distribution with those from other deep spectroscopic surveys (e.g. zCOSMOS-Deep - Lilly et al. 2007, Lilly Article number, page 13 of 21 A&A proofs: manuscript no. muse_HDFS et al. 2009, VVDS-Deep - Le Fèvre et al. 2013, VUDS - Le Fevre et al. 2014).”