COSMOS2020: A Panchromatic View of the Universe to z ∼ 10 from Two Complementary Catalogs

The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) has become a cornerstone of extragalactic astronomy. Since the last public catalog in 2015, a wealth of new imaging and spectroscopic data have been collected in the COSMOS field. This paper describes the collection, processing, and analysis of these new imaging data to produce a new reference photometric redshift catalog. Source detection and multiwavelength photometry are performed for 1.7 million sources across the 2 deg2 of the COSMOS field, ∼966,000 of which are measured with all available broadband data using both traditional aperture photometric methods and a new profile-fitting photometric extraction tool, The Farmer, which we have developed. A detailed comparison of the two resulting photometric catalogs is presented. Photometric redshifts are computed for all sources in each catalog utilizing two independent photometric redshift codes. Finally, a comparison is made between the performance of the photometric methodologies and of the redshift codes to demonstrate an exceptional degree of self-consistency in the resulting photometric redshifts. The i < 21 sources have subpercent photometric redshift accuracy and even the faintest sources at 25 < i < 27 reach a precision of 5%. Finally, these results are discussed in the context of previous, current, and future surveys in the COSMOS field. Compared to COSMOS2015, it reaches the same photometric redshift precision at almost one magnitude deeper. Both photometric catalogs and their photometric redshift solutions and physical parameters will be made available through the usual astronomical archive systems (ESO Phase 3, IPAC-IRSA, and CDS).

Calibrating photometric redshift measurements with the Multi-channel Imager (MCI) of the China Space Station Telescope (CSST)

The China Space Station Telescope (CSST) photometric survey aims to perform a high spatial resolution (~0.15'') photometric imaging for the targets that cover a large sky area (~17,500 deg^2) and wide wavelength range (from NUV to NIR). It expects to explore the properties of dark matter, dark energy, and other important cosmological and astronomical areas. In this work, we evaluate whether the filter design of the Multi-channel Imager (MCI), one of the five instruments of the CSST, can provide accurate photometric redshift (photo-$z$) measurements with its nine medium-band filters to meet the relevant scientific objectives. We generate the mock data based on the COSMOS photometric redshift catalog with astrophysical and instrumental effects. The application of upper limit information of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) data is adopted in the estimation of photo-z. We investigate the dependency of photo-z accuracy on the filter parameters, such as band position and width. We find that the current MCI filter design can achieve good photo-z measurements with accuracy sigma_z~0.017 and outlier fraction f_c~2.2%. It can effectively improve the photo-z measurements of the main CSST survey using the Survey Camera (SC) to an accuracy sigma_z~0.015 and outlier fraction f_c~1.5%. It indicates that the original MCI filters are proper for the photo-z calibration.

Developing a photometric estimate of quasar redshifts: An independent measurement of the distances to the most powerful objects in the Universe

<p>While spectroscopy is the standard method of measuring the redshift of luminous objects, it is a time-intensive technique, requiring, in some cases, hours of telescope time for a single source. Additionally, spectroscopy favours brighter objects, and therefore introduces an intrinsic bias towards luminous or closer sources. A simple method of estimating the redshift through photometry would prove invaluable to forthcoming surveys on the next generation of large radio telescopes, as well as alleviating the inherent bias towards the most optically bright sources. While there is a well-established correlation between the near-infrared K-band magnitude and redshift for galaxies, we find that the K-z relation breaks down for samples dominated by quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). Current methods of estimating photometric redshift rely either on template spectra, which requires a high number of infrared photometry points, or computationally intensive machine learning methods. Using photometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) we investigate the relationship between combinations of magnitudes of a group of quasars, and their redshift. We find a high correlation between the colour relation (I-W2)/(W3-U) and redshift for a group of broad-line emission sources from the SDSS, and we conclude that this could be a robust estimator of the redshift.</p>

Developing a photometric estimate of quasar redshifts: An independent measurement of the distances to the most powerful objects in the Universe

<p>While spectroscopy is the standard method of measuring the redshift of luminous objects, it is a time-intensive technique, requiring, in some cases, hours of telescope time for a single source. Additionally, spectroscopy favours brighter objects, and therefore introduces an intrinsic bias towards luminous or closer sources. A simple method of estimating the redshift through photometry would prove invaluable to forthcoming surveys on the next generation of large radio telescopes, as well as alleviating the inherent bias towards the most optically bright sources. While there is a well-established correlation between the near-infrared K-band magnitude and redshift for galaxies, we find that the K-z relation breaks down for samples dominated by quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). Current methods of estimating photometric redshift rely either on template spectra, which requires a high number of infrared photometry points, or computationally intensive machine learning methods. Using photometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) we investigate the relationship between combinations of magnitudes of a group of quasars, and their redshift. We find a high correlation between the colour relation (I-W2)/(W3-U) and redshift for a group of broad-line emission sources from the SDSS, and we conclude that this could be a robust estimator of the redshift.</p>

Galaxy evolution in different environments along redshift within the local universe z < 0.8

This study presents the evolution of the galaxies in different matter density along redshift within the local universe. A sample of 702,352 galaxies was collected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Under the limitation of the spectroscopic data, the appropriate photometric redshift was used to represent the spectroscopic redshift in the range of 0.0 ≤ z ≤ 0.8. Number density of galaxies, galaxy’s colors, and star formation activities are considered to describe the evolution of galaxies. In summary, the number density is not clearly different although the Dec and RA of the sky areas are disparate, but it steeply declines along the redshift direction. Considering the number density together with galaxies’ Hα emission line from spectroscopic data, we find that both equivalent of hydrogen alpha and Hα flux tend to decrease along the redshift, similar to the decreasing trend of the number density. Furthermore, the galaxy color trend is found to be redder as a function of the redshift for the magnitude range of -19 ≤ M g ≤ -17. It implies that the overview of the star formation activity of the fainter galaxies at the lower redshift tend to show higher than the ones at higher redshift.

Extensive Lensing Survey of Optical and Near-infrared Dark Objects (El Sonido): HST H-faint Galaxies behind 101 Lensing Clusters

We present a Spitzer/IRAC survey of H-faint (H 160 ≳ 26.4, < 5σ) sources in 101 lensing cluster fields. Across a CANDELS/Wide-like survey area of ∼648 arcmin2 (effectively ∼221 arcmin2 in the source plane), we have securely discovered 53 sources in the IRAC Channel-2 band (CH2, 4.5 μm; median CH2 = 22.46 ± 0.11 AB mag) that lack robust HST/WFC3-IR F160W counterparts. The most remarkable source in our sample, namely ES-009 in the field of Abell 2813, is the brightest H-faint galaxy at 4.5 μm known so far (CH2 = 20.48 ± 0.03 AB mag). We show that the H-faint sources in our sample are massive (median M star = 1010.3±0.3 M ⊙), star-forming (median star formation rate = 100 − 40 + 60 M ⊙ yr−1), and dust-obscured (A V = 2.6 ± 0.3) galaxies around a median photometric redshift of z = 3.9 ± 0.4. The stellar continua of 14 H-faint galaxies can be resolved in the CH2 band, suggesting a median circularized effective radius (R e,circ; lensing corrected) of 1.9 ± 0.2 kpc and <1.5 kpc for the resolved and whole samples, respectively. This is consistent with the sizes of massive unobscured galaxies at z ∼ 4, indicating that H-faint galaxies represent the dusty tail of the distribution of a wider galaxy population. Comparing with the ALMA dust continuum sizes of similar galaxies reported previously, we conclude that the heavy dust obscuration in H-faint galaxies is related to the compactness of both stellar and dust continua (R e,circ ∼ 1 kpc). These H-faint galaxies make up 16 − 7 + 13 % of the galaxies in the stellar-mass range of 1010 − 1011.2 M ⊙ at z = 3 ∼ 5, contributing to 8 − 4 + 8 % of the cosmic star formation rate density in this epoch and likely tracing the early phase of massive galaxy formation.

Exploring New Redshift Indicators for Radio-Powerful AGN

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are relevant sources of radiation that might have helped reionising the Universe during its early epochs. The super-massive black holes (SMBHs) they host helped accreting material and emitting large amounts of energy into the medium. Recent studies have shown that, for epochs earlier than z∼5, the number density of SMBHs is on the order of few hundreds per square degree. Latest observations place this value below 300 SMBHs at z≳6 for the full sky. To overcome this gap, it is necessary to detect large numbers of sources at the earliest epochs. Given the large areas needed to detect such quantities, using traditional redshift determination techniques—spectroscopic and photometric redshift—is no longer an efficient task. Machine Learning (ML) might help obtaining precise redshift for large samples in a fraction of the time used by other methods. We have developed and implemented an ML model which can predict redshift values for WISE-detected AGN in the HETDEX Spring Field. We obtained a median prediction error of σzN=1.48×(zPredicted−zTrue)/(1+zTrue)=0.1162 and an outlier fraction of η=11.58% at (zPredicted−zTrue)/(1+zTrue)>0.15, in line with previous applications of ML to AGN. We also applied the model to data from the Stripe 82 area obtaining a prediction error of σzN=0.2501.

One Source, Two Source(s): Ribs and Tethers

We present the unique and challenging case of a radio galaxy in Abell 3266 observed as part of the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey. It has quasi-periodic bright patches along the tail which connect to never-before-seen thin transverse extensions, which we call “ribs”, reaching up to ∼50 kpc from the central axis of the tail. At a distance of ∼400 kpc from the host (assuming the z=0.0594 redshift of Abell 3266) we found what appears to be a triple source with its own apparent host at a photometric redshift of 0.78. Mysteriously, the part of the tail far from the host and the triple are connected by a series of thin filaments, which we call “tethers”. The far tail, tethers and triple also have similar spectra and Faraday rotation measures, suggesting that there is only one—quite complicated—source, with a serendipitous background AGN in the triple. We look at possible causes for the “rib” and “tether” structures, and the emerging phenomena of intracluster medium filaments associated with radio galaxies.