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arXiv · 1112.0312

The Arizona CDFS Environment Survey (ACES): A Magellan/IMACS Spectroscopic Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South

Michael C. Cooper·R. Yan·M. Dickinson·S. Juneau·J. M. Lotz·J. A. Newman·C. Papovich·S. Salim·G. Walth·B. J. Weiner·C. N. A. Willmer
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Abstract

We present the Arizona CDFS Environment Survey (ACES), a recently-completed spectroscopic redshift survey of the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS) conducted using IMACS on the Magellan-Baade telescope. In total, the survey targeted 7277 unique sources down to a limiting magnitude of R = 24.1, yielding 5080 secure redshifts across the ~30' x 30' extended CDFS region. The ACES dataset delivers a significant increase to both the spatial coverage and the sampling density of the spectroscopic observations in the field. Combined with previously-published, spectroscopic redshifts, ACES now creates a highly-complete survey of the galaxy population at R < 23, enabling the local galaxy density (or environment) on relatively small scales (~1 Mpc) to be measured at z < 1 in one of the most heavily-studied and data-rich fields in the sky. Here, we describe the motivation, design, and implementation of the survey and present a preliminary redshift and environment catalog. In addition, we utilize the ACES spectroscopic redshift catalog to assess the quality of photometric redshifts from both the COMBO-17 and MUSYC imaging surveys of the CDFS.

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Michael C. Cooper, R. Yan, M. Dickinson, S. Juneau, J. M. Lotz, J. A. Newman, C. Papovich, S. Salim, G. Walth, B. J. Weiner, C. N. A. Willmer. 2012-06-04. The Arizona CDFS Environment Survey (ACES): A Magellan/IMACS Spectroscopic Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21524.x

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