THE FOURSTAR GALAXY EVOLUTION SURVEY (ZFOURGE): ULTRAVIOLET TO FAR-INFRARED CATALOGS, MEDIUM-BANDWIDTH PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS WITH IMPROVED ACCURACY, STELLAR MASSES, AND CONFIRMATION OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES TO z 3.5* Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • ABSTRACT The FourStar galaxy evolution survey (ZFOURGE) is a 45 night legacy program with the FourStar near-infrared camera on Magellan and one of the most sensitive surveys to date. ZFOURGE covers a total of 400 arcmin2 in cosmic fields CDFS, COSMOS and UDS, overlapping CANDELS. We present photometric catalogs comprising >70,000 galaxies, selected from ultradeep K s -band detection images (25.526.5 AB mag, 5, total), and >80% complete to K s <25.325.9 AB. We use 5 near-IR medium-bandwidth filters (J 1, J 2, J 3, H s , H l ) as well as broad-band K s at 1.052.16 m to 2526 AB at a seeing of 0.5. Each field has ancillary imaging in 2640 filters at 0.38 m. We derive photometric redshifts and stellar population properties. Comparing with spectroscopic redshifts indicates a photometric redshift uncertainty z =0.010, 0.009, and 0.011 in CDFS, COSMOS, and UDS. As spectroscopic samples are often biased toward bright and blue sources, we also inspect the photometric redshift differences between close pairs of galaxies, finding z,pairs=0.010.02 at 1<z<2.5. We quantify how z,pairs depends on redshift, magnitude, spectral energy distribution type, and the inclusion of FourStar medium bands. z,pairs is smallest for bright, blue star-forming samples, while red star-forming galaxies have the worst z,pairs. Including FourStar medium bands reduces z,pairs by 50% at 1.5<z<2.5. We calculate star formation rates (SFRs) based on ultraviolet and ultradeep far-IR Spitzer/MIPS and Herschel/PACS data. We derive rest-frame UV and VJ colors, and illustrate how these correlate with specific SFR and dust emission to z=3.5. We confirm the existence of quiescent galaxies at z3, demonstrating their SFRs are suppressed by >15.

published proceedings

  • ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

altmetric score

  • 62.552

author list (cited authors)

  • Straatman, C., Spitler, L. R., Quadri, R. F., Labbe, I., Glazebrook, K., Persson, S. E., ... Whitaker, K. E.

citation count

  • 202

complete list of authors

  • Straatman, Caroline MS||Spitler, Lee R||Quadri, Ryan F||Labbe, Ivo||Glazebrook, Karl||Persson, S Eric||Papovich, Casey||Tran, Kim-Vy H||Brammer, Gabriel B||Cowley, Michael||Tomczak, Adam||Nanayakkara, Themiya||Alcorn, Leo||Allen, Rebecca||Broussard, Adam||van Dokkum, Pieter||Forrest, Ben||van Houdt, Josha||Kacprzak, Glenn G||Kawinwanichakij, Lalitwadee||Kelson, Daniel D||Lee, Janice||McCarthy, Patrick J||Mehrtens, Nicola||Monson, Andrew||Murphy, David||Rees, Glen||Tilvi, Vithal||Whitaker, Katherine E

publication date

  • October 2016