We present a catalog of galaxy clusters selected via their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect signature from 2500 deg 2 of South Pole Telescope (SPT) data. This work represents the complete sample of clusters detected at high significance in the 2500 deg 2 SPT-SZ survey, which was completed in 2011. A total of 677 (409) cluster candidates are identified above a signal-to-noise threshold of ξ = 4.5 (5.0). Ground-and space-based optical and near-infrared (NIR) imaging confirms overdensities of similarly colored galaxies in the direction of 516 (or 76%) of the ξ > 4.5 candidates and 387 (or 95%) of the ξ > 5 candidates; the measured purity is consistent with expectations from simulations. Of these confirmed clusters, 415 were first identified in SPT data, including 251 new discoveries reported in this work. We estimate photometric redshifts for all candidates with identified optical and/or NIR counterparts; we additionally report redshifts derived from spectroscopic observations for 141 of these systems. The mass threshold of the catalog is roughly independent of redshift above z ∼ 0.25 leading to a sample of massive clusters that extends to high redshift. The median mass of the sample is M 500c (ρ crit ) ∼ 3.5 × 10 14 M h −1 70 , the median redshift is z med = 0.55, and the highest-redshift systems are at z >1.4. The combination of large redshift extent, clean selection, and high typical mass makes this cluster sample of particular interest for cosmological analyses and studies of cluster formation and evolution.

We describe the first public data release of the Dark Energy Survey, DES DR1, consisting of reduced single-epoch images, co-added images, co-added source catalogs, and associated products and services assembled over the first 3 yr of DES science operations. DES DR1 is based on optical/near-infrared imaging from 345 distinct nights (2013 August to 2016 February) by the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the 4 m Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. We release data from the DES wide-area survey covering ∼5000 deg 2 of the southern Galactic cap in five broad photometric bands, grizY. DES DR1 has a median delivered point-spread function of = g 1.12, r=0.96, i=0.88, z=0.84, and Y=0 90 FWHM, a photometric precision of <1% in all bands, and an astrometric precision of 151 mas. The median co-added catalog depth for a 1 95 diameter aperture at signal-to-noise ratio (S/N)=10 is g=24.33, r=24.08, i=23.44, z=22.69, and Y=21.44 mag. DES DR1 includes nearly 400 million distinct astronomical objects detected in ∼10,000 co-add tiles of size 0.534 deg 2 produced from ∼39,000 individual exposures. Benchmark galaxy and stellar samples contain ∼310 million and ∼80 million objects, respectively, following a basic object quality selection. These data are accessible through a range of interfaces, including query web clients, image cutout servers, jupyter notebooks, and an interactive co-add image visualization tool. DES DR1 constitutes the largest photometric data set to date at the achieved depth and photometric precision.

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The Blanco Cosmology Survey (BCS) is a 60 night imaging survey of ∼80 deg 2 of the southern sky located in two fields: (α,δ)= (5 hr, −55 • ) and (23 hr, −55 • ). The survey was carried out between 2005 and 2008 in griz bands with the Mosaic2 imager on the Blanco 4m telescope. The primary aim of the BCS survey is to provide the data required to optically confirm and measure photometric redshifts for Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect selected galaxy clusters from the South Pole Telescope and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. We process and calibrate the BCS data, carrying out PSF corrected model fitting photometry for all detected objects. The median 10σ galaxy (point source) depths over the survey in griz are approximately 23.3 (23.9), 23.4 (24.0), 23.0 (23.6) and 21.3 (22.1), respectively. The astrometric accuracy relative to the USNO-B survey is ∼ 45 milli-arcsec. We calibrate our absolute photometry using the stellar locus in grizJ bands, and thus our absolute photometric scale derives from 2MASS which has ∼ 2% accuracy. The scatter of stars about the stellar locus indicates a systematics floor in the relative stellar photometric scatter in griz that is ∼1.9%, ∼2.2%, ∼2.7% and∼2.7%, respectively. A simple cut in the AstrOmatic star-galaxy classifier spread model produces a star sample with good spatial uniformity. We use the resulting photometric catalogs to calibrate photometric redshifts for the survey and demonstrate scatter δz/(1 + z) = 0.054 with an outlier fraction η < 5% to z ∼ 1. We highlight some selected science results to date and provide a full description of the released data products.