The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey: I - Survey Objectives and Design
Abstract
We describe the HST ACS Coma cluster Treasury survey, a deep two-passband imaging survey of one of the nearest rich clusters of galaxies, the Coma cluster (Abell 1656). The survey was designed to cover an area of 740 square arcmin in regions of different density of both galaxies and intergalactic medium within the cluster. The ACS failure of January 27th 2007 leaves the survey 28% complete, with 21 ACS pointings (230 square arcmin) complete, and partial data for a further 4 pointings (44 square arcmin). Predicted survey depth for 10 sigma detections for optimal photometry of point sources is g' = 27.6 in the F475W filter, and IC=26.8 mag in F814 (AB magnitudes). Initial simulations with artificially injected point sources show 90% recovered at magnitude limits of g' = 27.55 and IC = 26.65. For extended sources, the predicted 10 sigma limits for a 1 square arcsecond region are g' = 25.8 mag/sq. arcsec and IC = 25.0 mag/sq. arcsec. We highlight several motivating science goals of the survey, including study of the faint end of the cluster galaxy luminosity function, structural parameters of dwarf galaxies, stellar populations and their effect on colors and color gradients, evolution of morphological components in a dense environment, the nature of ultra compact dwarf galaxies, and globular cluster populations of cluster galaxies of a range of luminosities and types. This survey will also provide a local rich cluster benchmark for various well known global scaling relations and explore new relations pertaining to the nuclear properties of galaxies.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0801.3745,
title = {The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey: I - Survey Objectives and Design},
author = {David Carter and Paul Goudfrooij and Bahram Mobasher and Henry C. Ferguson and Thomas H. Puzia and Alfonso L. Aguerri and Marc Balcells and Dan Batcheldor and Terry J. Bridges and Jonathan I. Davies and Peter Erwin and Alister W. Graham and Rafael Guzmán and Derek Hammer and Ann Hornschemeier and Carlos Hoyos and Michael J. Hudson and Avon Huxor and Shardha Jogee and Yutaka Komiyama and Jennifer Lotz and John R. Lucey and Ronald O. Marzke and David Merritt and Bryan W. Miller and Neal A. Miller and Mustapha Mouhcine and Sadanori Okamura and Reynier F. Peletier and Steven Phillipps and Bianca M. Poggianti and Ray M. Sharples and Russell J. Smith and Neil Trentham and R. Brent Tully and Edwin Valentijn and Gijs Verdoes Kleijn},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0801.3745},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
47 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal supplement