THE NEWFIRM MEDIUM-BAND SURVEY: PHOTOMETRIC CATALOGS, REDSHIFTS, AND THE BIMODAL COLOR DISTRIBUTION OF GALAXIES OUT TO z ∼ 3

By K. Whitaker, I. Labbé, P. V. van Dokkum, G. Brammer, M. Kriek, D. Marchesini, R. Quadri, M. Franx, A. Muzzin, Rik J. Williams and 8 more. 2011

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We present deep near-IR (NIR) medium-bandwidth photometry over the wavelength range 1–1.8 μm in the All-wavelength Extended Groth strip International Survey (AEGIS) and Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) fields. The observations were carried out using the NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Imager (NEWFIRM) on the Mayall 4 m Telescope on Kitt Peak as part of the NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey (NMBS), an NOAO survey program. In this paper, we describe the full details of the observations, data reduction, and photometry for the survey. We also present a public K-selected photometric catalog, along with accurate photometric redshifts. The redshifts are computed with 37 (20) filters in the COSMOS (AEGIS) fields, combining the NIR medium-bandwidth data with existing UV (Galaxy Evolution Explorer), visible and NIR (Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope and Subaru Telescope), and mid-IR (Spitzer/IRAC) imaging. We find excellent agreement with publicly available spectroscopic redshifts, with σz/(1 + z) ∼ 1%–2% for ∼4000 galaxies at z = 0–3. The NMBS catalogs contain ∼13,000 galaxies at z > 1.5 with accurate photometric redshifts and rest-frame colors. Due to the increased spectral resolution obtained with the five NIR medium-band filters, the median 68% confidence intervals of the photometric redshifts of both quiescent and star-forming galaxies are a factor of about two times smaller when comparing catalogs with medium-band NIR photometry to NIR broadband photometry. We show evidence for a clear bimodal color distribution between quiescent and star-forming galaxies that persists to z ∼ 3, a higher redshift than has been probed so far.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/71ca0a225452969b3240e0337fa8b032ef8b7f41

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Citations in the corpus

NEWLY QUENCHED GALAXIES AS THE CAUSE FOR THE APPARENT EVOLUTION IN AVERAGE SIZE OF THE POPULATION (2013, methodology): “…2007), we nevertheless favor this technique over a profile-fitting approach (cf. Sargent et al. 2007, Mancini et al. 2010, Cassata et al. 2011, Whitaker et al. 2011) for the present analysis due to its high stability—both the stability of its performance across the full morphological…”
PRIMUS: CONSTRAINTS ON STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND GALAXY MERGING, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR MASS FUNCTION FROM z = 0–1 (2013, background): “These broad empirical trends have been shown to persist at least to z ∼ 3 (e.g., Bell et al. 2004; Cooper et al. 2007; Cassata et al. 2008; Brammer et al. 2009; Whitaker et al. 2011).”
A LARGE POPULATION OF MASSIVE COMPACT POST-STARBURST GALAXIES AT z > 1: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SIZE EVOLUTION AND QUENCHING MECHANISM OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES (2011, methodology): “…space known as the “red sequence”, observed both in the local universe (e.g., Kauffmann et al. 2003; Baldry et al. 2004), as well as out to high redshift (e.g., Franzetti et al. 2007; Cassata et al. 2008; Kriek et al. 2008; Williams et al. 2009; Brammer et al. 2009; Whitaker et al. 2010, 2011).”
The many flavours of photometric redshifts (2018, background): “Surveys with intermediate or narrow band photometry (COSMOS: [88]; SHARDS: [80]; ALHAMBRA: [81]; CANDELS/CDFS: [78]; NEWFIRM: [92]) are highlighted with an asterisk.”
A HIGHLY CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE STAR-FORMING “MAIN SEQUENCE” FROM z ∼ 0–6 (2014, methodology): “V − J (UV J) selected galaxies from 0 < z < 2.5 in the NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Imager (NEWFIRM) Medium-Band Survey (NMBS; Whitaker et al. 2011), which encompasses two fields within COmassOS and AEGIS.”
THE NUMBER DENSITY AND MASS DENSITY OF STAR-FORMING AND QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT 0.4 ⩽ z ⩽ 2.2 (2011, methodology): “The NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey The NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey (NMBS; van Dokkum et al. 2009; Whitaker et al. 2011) provides well-sampled galaxy spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from rest-frame UV through NIR wavelengths up toz∼ 3.5, thanks in part to a custom set of five medium-band NIR filters…”
GOODS-HERSCHEL: STAR FORMATION, DUST ATTENUATION, AND THE FIR–RADIO CORRELATION ON THE MAIN SEQUENCE OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES UP TO z ≃ 4 (2014, methodology): “We have usedEAZY in its standard set-up and modeled the observed galaxy SED with a linear combination of the seven standardEAZY galaxy templates (Whitaker et al. 2011) in order to maximize the likelihood as a function of the galaxy redshift.”
CONSTRAINING THE LOW-MASS SLOPE OF THE STAR FORMATION SEQUENCE AT 0.5 < z < 2.5 (2014, methodology): “Wuyts et al. 2007; Williams et al. 2009; Bundy et al. 2010; Cardamone et al. 2010; Whitaker et al. 2011; Brammer et al. 2011; Patel et al. 2012); quiescent galaxies have strong Balmer/ 4000 Å breaks, characterized by red rest-frame U–”
CANDELS MULTI-WAVELENGTH CATALOGS: SOURCE DETECTION AND PHOTOMETRY IN THE GOODS-SOUTH FIELD (2013, methodology): “…& Beacom 2006; Bouwens et al. 2009), and galaxies quickly assembled their stars (e.g., Daddi et al. 2007; Reddy et al. 2008; Reddy & Steidel 2009) as well as began to differentiate into morphological sequence (e.g., Cassata et al. 2008; Kriek et al. 2009; Whitaker et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2012).”
A CANDELS–3D-HST SYNERGY: RESOLVED STAR FORMATION PATTERNS AT 0.7 < z < 1.5 (2013, background): “The latter span up to 30+ medium and broad bands from 0.3 to 8 micron (e.g., Ilbert et al. 2009; Whitaker et al. 2011; Spitler et al. 2012), complemented further by mid-to-far-infrared photometry, probing dustobscured star formation within at least the more massive SFGs (e.g., Magnelli et al. 2013).”
3D-HST WFC3-SELECTED PHOTOMETRIC CATALOGS IN THE FIVE CANDELS/3D-HST FIELDS: PHOTOMETRY, PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS, AND STELLAR MASSES (2014, methodology): “The black lines mark the selection that is typically used to distinguish star-forming and quiescent galaxies (Williams et al. 2009; Whitaker et al. 2011).”
The dark side of galaxy colour (2013, background): “This segregation between blue star-forming and red passively evolving galaxies has been shown to persist out to z ∼ 1 (Bell et al. 2004; Cooper et al. 2006, 2012) and even as high as z ∼ 3 (Whitaker et al. 2011).”
THE DUST ATTENUATION LAW IN DISTANT GALAXIES: EVIDENCE FOR VARIATION WITH SPECTRAL TYPE (2013, methodology): “This combination has recently become feasible with the completion of the NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey (NMBS; Whitaker et al. 2011; van Dokkum et al. 2009).”
3D-HST: A WIDE-FIELD GRISM SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY WITH THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE (2012, methodology): “Current state-of-the-art photometric techniques provide a redshift precision of σ/(1 + z) ∼ 2% (e.g., Whitaker et al. 2011) and stellar mass estimates with precision ∼0.1 dex (Taylor et al. 2011), but with potentially large systematic uncertainties (e.g., Marchesini et al. 2009).”
The WIRCam Deep Survey I. Counts, colours, and mass-functions derived from near-infrared imaging in the CFHTLS deep fields (2011, methodology): “These data have already been used in a number of studies: Bielby et al. 2010; Cassata et al. 2011; Andreon 2011; Cucciati et al. 2012; Raichoor & Andreon 2012; Whitaker et al. 2011; Willott et al. 2012.”
EVIDENCE FOR UBIQUITOUS COLLIMATED GALACTIC-SCALE OUTFLOWS ALONG THE STAR-FORMING SEQUENCE AT z ∼ 0.5 (2013, background): “Surveys reaching into the more distant universe (e.g., COMBO-17, DEEP2, the NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey; Bell et al. 2004; Davis et al. 2003; Whitaker et al. 2011) have revealed a gradual decline in the characteristic galaxy mass scale hosting strong star formation activity (‘downsizing’; Cowie et…”
STELLAR KINEMATICS OF z ∼ 2 GALAXIES AND THE INSIDE-OUT GROWTH OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES, (2012, background): “Among the most massive galaxies (M∗ > 1011 M⊙ ) approximately 40% are no longer forming stars (e.g.,Whitaker et al. 2011; Brammer et al. 2011).”
The star formation activity of IllustrisTNG galaxies: main sequence, UVJ diagram, quenched fractions, and systematics (2018, methodology): “As in the case of low-mass galaxies, the UVJ cut provided by Whitaker et al. (2011) turns into higher quenched fractions with respect to the TNG, of about ∼ 10, 20 and < 10 percentage points z = 0, 1, and 2, respectively.”
The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z = 4 to the present day (2014, background): “It is thus common to adopt slightly different definitions to account for these effects (see e.g., Cardamone et al. 2010; Whitaker et al. 2011; Brammer et al. 2011; Strazzullo et al. 2013; Viero et al. 2013; Muzzin et al. 2013b).”