Physics
Scientific paper
Mar 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50443b&link_type=abstract
Spitzer Proposal ID #50443
Physics
Scientific paper
We propose here for archival research funding to measure the build-up of stellar mass over the last eight billion years, using an unprecedentedly large sample. Measuring the increase of stellar mass in galaxies, and determining its dependence on galaxy type and environment, yields crucial information about the star-formation and merger history of galaxies. This history has been the subject of intense research over the past few years, but has been limited by both systematic effects and by the sizes of the available observational samples. Our PRIMUS survey contains over 200,000 spectroscopic redshifts, measured at 1 percent precision, out to redshift z=1, covering 8 square degrees of SWIRE and S-COSMOS imaging. Our sample is flux-limited at i=23 and includes all galaxy types, spanning the red and blue galaxy populations. We have created this sample using a special mode we have developed for the IMACS instrument on the Magellan 6.5m at Las Campanas Observatories: a low dispersion prism in combination with a multi-slit mask. This configuration allows redshift determination of 1 percent accuracy, while also allowing extreme multiplexing to obtain over 2,000 galaxy spectra simultaneously. With the SWIRE optical and infrared imaging in combination with our redshift determinations, we can recover much more accurate estimates of the stellar mass of each galaxy and construct a high signal-to-noise estimate of the stellar mass function over a range of redshifts. These measurements will dramatically improve our current understanding of the build-up of stellar mass, both by decreasing the statistical uncertainty due to sample variance with our massive sample, and by decreasing the systematic uncertainties in stellar masses by using the SWIRE and S-COSMOS imaging.
Blanton Michael
Bolton Adam
Coil Alison
Cool Richard R.
Eisenstein Daniel
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