Lyman Break Galaxies at Redshift z ~ 3: Survey Description and Full Data Set

By C. Steidel, K. Adelberger, A. Shapley, M. Pettini, Mark Dickinson, M. Giavalisco. 2003

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We present the basic data for a large ground-based spectroscopic survey for z ~ 3 Lyman break galaxies (LBGs), photometrically selected using rest-UV colors from very deep images in 17 high Galactic latitude fields. The total survey covers an area of 0.38 deg2 and includes 2347 photometrically selected candidate LBGs to an apparent ℛAB magnitude limit of 25.5. Approximately half of these objects have been observed spectroscopically using the Keck telescopes, yielding 940 redshifts with ⟨z⟩ = 2.96 ± 0.29. We discuss the images, photometry, target selection, and spectroscopic program in some detail and present catalogs of the photometric and spectroscopic data, made available in electronic form. We discuss the general utility of conducting nearly volume-limited redshift surveys in prescribed redshift intervals using judicious application of photometric preselection.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c9f910641af19a93a8202f84554ae3d6317461f9

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Citations in the corpus

Ultraviolet to Mid-Infrared Observations of Star-forming Galaxies at z ~ 2: Stellar Masses and Stellar Populations (2005, methodology): “As shown in figure 3, 46 of the 99 sources satsifying the Barmby et al. color criteria do indeed lie in the regions of UnGR color space from which z ∼ 2 BM (z = 1.70 ± 0.34), BX (z = 2.20 ± 0.32), MD (z = 2.72 ± 0.3) and C/D/M (z = 3.0 ± 0.3) (Steidel et al. 2003) galaxies are drawn.”
Probing reionization with Lyman α emission lines (2003, background): “It also plays an important role in identifying the redshift of some galaxies at z ∼ 2–3 because its strength, even in some apparently extremely dusty galaxies, allows for redshift determinations when little continuum light is visible (e.g. Chapman et al. 2003; Steidel et al. 2003).”
SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS OF LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES AT REDSHIFTS ∼4, 5, AND 6 IN THE GOODS-SOUTH FIELD (2009, methodology): “The effectiveness of the LBG color selection has been verified at z ∼ 3 by means of an extensive program of spectroscopic confirmations of over a thousand U–band dropouts (Steidel et al. 2003).”
The Team Keck Treasury Redshift Survey of the GOODS-North Field (2004, background): “This list collated measurements from Cohen et al. (1996); Cowie et al. (1996); Lowenthal et al. (1997); Phillips et al. (1997); Moustakas et al. (1997); Cohen et al. (2000); Cohen (2001); Dawson et al. (2001); Steidel et al. (2003) and Cowie et al. (2004).”
Star Formation and Extinction in Redshift z~2 Galaxies: Inferences from Spitzer MIPS Observations (2006, methodology): “In addition to BX/BM galaxies, we also consider galaxies selected using the z 3 Lyman break galaxy (LBG) criteria (Steidel et al. 2003).”
Properties of Lyα emitters around the radio galaxy MRC 0316 257 (2005, background): “The number density of faint (21 mR 25.5) QSOs near z = 3 in the LBG survey of Steidel and collaborators (Steidel et al., 2003) is 250 QSO deg−2 in a redshift interval ∆z ≃ 0.6 (Steidel et al., 2002).”
DEMOGRAPHICS AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF GAS OUTFLOWS/INFLOWS AT 0.4 < z < 1.4 (2012, methodology): “…rejecting cosmic rays, subtracting the sky background, averaging individual exposures into final stacked two-dimensional spectra, extracting to one dimension, wavelength and flux calibrating, and shifting into the vacuum frame.10 These procedures are described in detail in Steidel et al. (2003).”
A Census of Optical and Near-Infrared Selected Star-forming and Passively Evolving Galaxies at Redshift z ~ 2 (2005, methodology): “The procedures for source detection and photometry are described in Steidel et al. (2003).”
ULTRAVIOLET LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS FROM 132 z ∼ 7 AND z ∼ 8 LYMAN-BREAK GALAXIES IN THE ULTRA-DEEP HUDF09 AND WIDE-AREA EARLY RELEASE SCIENCE WFC3/IR OBSERVATIONS (2010, background): “Spectroscopic follow-up has shown that these criteria are generally quite robust in identifying star-forming galaxies at z∼3-7 (e.g., Steidel et al. 1996, 2003; Popesso et al. 2009; Vanzella et al. 2009; Stark et al. 2010) though admittedly spectroscopic follow-up of the very faintest sources at z…”
HiZELS: a high-redshift survey of Hα emitters – I. The cosmic star formation rate and clustering at z= 2.23 (2008, methodology): “An alternative selection of high redshift galaxies is made with ugr colours, and has been used to search forz ∼ 3 Lyman Break galaxies (LBGs, Steidel et al. 1996) and ‘BM/BX’ star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 2 (Adelberger et al. 2004, Steidel et al. 2003).”
The Physical Nature of Rest-UV Galaxy Morphology during the Peak Epoch of Galaxy Formation (2006, unknown): “Our sample is drawn from rest-UV color-selected catalogs of z ∼ 2− 3 star-forming galaxy candidates (Steidel et al. 2003, 2004; Adelberger et al. 2004) in the GOODSN field.”
RECONCILING THE STELLAR AND NEBULAR SPECTRA OF HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXIES (2016, methodology): “…cutoff near 3100 Å, and into a region which enjoys unparalleled sensitivity for direct observation of the integrated far-UV light from massive OB stars in the same galaxies (see, e.g., Pettini et al. 2002; Shapley et al. 2003; Steidel et al. 2003, 2004; Rix et al. 2004; Steidel et al. 2010).”
The Fall of Active Galactic Nuclei and the Rise of Star-forming Galaxies: A Close Look at the Chandra Deep Field X-Ray Number Counts (2004, methodology): “Redshifts for the X-ray sources were culled from several recent spectroscopic (Barger et al. 2003; Steidel et al. 2003; Le Fevre et al. 2004; Szokoly et al. 2004; Wirth et al. 2004) and photometric (Alexander et al. 2001; Barger et al. 2003; Wolf et al. 2004) catalogs.”
A Survey of Star-forming Galaxies in the 1.4 ≲ z ≲ 2.5 Redshift Desert: Overview (2004, methodology): “Color Selection Our searches for galaxies at z ¼ 1:4 2:5 are based on deep images in the Un, G, and R passbands of similar quality (in terms of depth and seeing) as those used in our published survey for Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at z ’ 3 (Steidel et al. 2003).”
Calibrating Redshift Distributions beyond Spectroscopic Limits with Cross-Correlations (2008, background): “…tens of thousands of galaxies to R ∼ 24 or I ∼ 23 (Davis et al. 2006, in prep; Le Fèvre et al. 2005) and for a few thousand selected galaxies to R ∼ 25.5 (Steidel et al. 1999, 2003, 2004), but precise measurements of the redshift distributions of samples of galaxies with R ∼ 26− 27 or even…”
CANDELS: THE COSMIC ASSEMBLY NEAR-INFRARED DEEP EXTRAGALACTIC LEGACY SURVEY (2011, unknown): “Furthermore, the field has been the subject of numerous spectroscopic surveys (e.g. Steidel et al. 2003; Wirth et al. 2004; Treu et al. 2005; Strolger et al. 2005; Reddy et al. 2006; Barger et al. 2008; Yoshikawa et al. 2010; Daddi et al. 2010; Cooper et al. 2011).”
[O III] / [N II] as an abundance indicator at high redshift (2004, background): “The galaxies accessible to detailed spectroscopic studies at redshifts z = 1 − 3 support very high rates of star formation, one to two orders of magnitude higher than those seen in the local universe (e.g. Steidel et al. 2003, 2004).”
A Large Sample of Spectroscopic Redshifts in the ACS-GOODS Region of the Hubble Deep Field North (2004, methodology): “Combining this sample with data from the literature (Cohen et al. 2000, hereafter C00; Dawson et al. 2001, hereafter D01; Steidel et al. 2003, hereafter S03) increases the identified sample to 1180.”
The Luminosity, Stellar Mass, and Number Density Evolution of Field Galaxies of Known Morphology from z = 0.5 to 3 (2004, background): “Redshifts - Spectroscopic and Photometric There are spectroscopic redshifts available for galaxies in the HDF-N, with the bulk from the surveys of Cohen et al. (2000) and Steidel et al. (2003), but other sources as well.”