The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO (2SLAQ) Luminous Red Galaxy Survey
Abstract
We present a spectroscopic survey of almost 15,000 candidate intermediate-redshift Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) brighter than i=19.8, observed with 2dF on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The targets were selected photometrically from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and lie along two narrow equatorial strips covering 180 sq deg. Reliable redshifts were obtained for 92% of the targets and the selection is very efficient: over 90% have redshifts between 0.45 and 0.8. More than 80% of the ~11,000 red galaxies have pure absorption-line spectra consistent with a passively-evolving old stellar population. The redshift, photometric and spatial distributions of the LRGs are described. The 2SLAQ data will be released publicly from mid-2006, providing a powerful resource for observational cosmology and the study of galaxy evolution.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0607631,
title = {The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO (2SLAQ) Luminous Red Galaxy Survey},
author = {R. Cannon and M. Drinkwater and A. Edge and D. Eisenstein and R. C. Nichol and P. Outram and K. Pimbblet and R. De Propris and I. Roseboom and David Wake and P. Allen and J. Bland-Hawthorn and T. Bridges and D. Carson and K. Chiu and M. Colless and W. Couch and S. Croom and S. Driver and S. Fine and P. Hewett and J Loveday and N. Ross and E. M. Sadler and T. Shanks and R. Sharp and J. Allyn Smith and C. Stoughton and Peter Weilbacher and R. J. Brunner and A. Meiksin and D. P. Schneider},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0607631},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 21 pages. The 2SLAQ LRG data discussed in this paper will become public when the paper appears in the journal. See http://www.2slaq.info for more information on the survey and data release, and a higher resolution version of the paper