TY - JOUR
T1 - Spectroscopic target selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
T2 - The luminous red galaxy sample
AU - Eisenstein, Daniel J.
AU - Annis, James
AU - Gunn, James E.
AU - Szalay, Alexander S.
AU - Connolly, Andrew J.
AU - Nichol, R. C.
AU - Bahcall, Neta A.
AU - Bernardi, Mariangela
AU - Burles, Scott
AU - Castander, Francisco J.
AU - Fukugita, Masataka
AU - Hogg, David W.
AU - Ivezić, Željko
AU - Knapp, G. R.
AU - Lupton, Robert H.
AU - Narayanan, Vijay
AU - Postman, Marc
AU - Reichart, Daniel E.
AU - Richmond, Michael
AU - Schneider, Donald P.
AU - Schlegel, David J.
AU - Strauss, Michael A.
AU - SubbaRao, Mark
AU - Tucker, Douglas L.
AU - Berk, Daniel Vanden
AU - Vogeley, Michael S.
AU - Weinberg, David H.
AU - Yanny, Brian
PY - 2001/11
Y1 - 2001/11
N2 - We describe the target selection and resulting properties of a spectroscopic sample of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). These galaxies are selected on the basis of color and magnitude to yield a sample of luminous intrinsically red galaxies that extends fainter and farther than the main flux-limited portion of the SDSS galaxy spectroscopic sample. The sample is designed to impose a passively evolving luminosity and rest-frame color cut to a redshift of 0.38. Additional, yet more luminous red galaxies are included to a redshift of ∼0.5. Approximately 12 of these galaxies per square degree are targeted for spectroscopy, so the sample will number over 100,000 with the full survey. SDSS commissioning data indicate that the algorithm efficiently selects luminous (M*g ≈ - 21.4) red galaxies, that the spectroscopic success rate is very high, and that the resulting set of galaxies is approximately volume limited out to z = 0.38. When the SDSS is complete, the LRG spectroscopic sample will fill over 1 h-3 Gpc3 with an approximately homogeneous population of galaxies and will therefore be well suited to studies of large-scale structure and clusters out to z = 0.5.
AB - We describe the target selection and resulting properties of a spectroscopic sample of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). These galaxies are selected on the basis of color and magnitude to yield a sample of luminous intrinsically red galaxies that extends fainter and farther than the main flux-limited portion of the SDSS galaxy spectroscopic sample. The sample is designed to impose a passively evolving luminosity and rest-frame color cut to a redshift of 0.38. Additional, yet more luminous red galaxies are included to a redshift of ∼0.5. Approximately 12 of these galaxies per square degree are targeted for spectroscopy, so the sample will number over 100,000 with the full survey. SDSS commissioning data indicate that the algorithm efficiently selects luminous (M*g ≈ - 21.4) red galaxies, that the spectroscopic success rate is very high, and that the resulting set of galaxies is approximately volume limited out to z = 0.38. When the SDSS is complete, the LRG spectroscopic sample will fill over 1 h-3 Gpc3 with an approximately homogeneous population of galaxies and will therefore be well suited to studies of large-scale structure and clusters out to z = 0.5.
KW - Cosmology: observations
KW - Galaxies: clusters: general
KW - Galaxies: distances and redshifts
KW - Galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD
KW - Large-scale structure of universe
KW - Surveys
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U2 - 10.1086/323717
DO - 10.1086/323717
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:18044395014
SN - 0004-6256
VL - 122
SP - 2267
EP - 2280
JO - Astronomical Journal
JF - Astronomical Journal
IS - 5
ER -