The ALHAMBRA (Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical) survey has observed 8 different regions of the sky, including sections of the COSMOS, DEEP2, ELAIS, GOODS-N, SDSS and Groth fields using a new photometric system with 20 optical, contiguous ∼300Å filters plus the JHKs bands. The filter system is designed to optimize the effective photometric redshift depth of the survey, while having enough wavelength resolution for the identification of faint emission lines. The observations, carried out with the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope using the wide field optical camera LAICA and the NIR instrument Omega-2000, represent a total of ∼700hrs of on-target science images. Here we present multicolor PSF-corrected photometry and photometric redshifts for ∼438,000 galaxies, detected in synthetic F 814W images. The catalogs are complete down to a magnitude I∼24.5AB and cover an effective area of 2.79 deg 2 . Photometric zeropoints were calibrated using stellar transformation equations and refined internally, using a new technique based on the highly robust photometric redshifts measured for emission line galaxies. We calculate Bayesian photometric redshifts with the BPZ2.0 code, obtaining a precision of δ z /(1+z s )=1% for I<22.5 and δ z /(1+z s )=1.4% for 22.5=0.56 for I<22.5 AB and =0.86 for I<24.5 AB. Given its depth and small cosmic variance, ALHAMBRA is a unique dataset for galaxy evolution studies.

Using a large optically-selected sample of field and group galaxies drawn from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium-Deep Survey (PS1/MDS), we present a detailed analysis of the specific star formation rate (SSFR) -stellar mass (M * ) relation, as well as the quiescent fraction versus M * relation in different environments. While both the SSFR and the quiescent fraction depend strongly on stellar mass, the environment also plays an important role. Using this large galaxy sample, we confirm that the fraction of quiescent galaxies is strongly dependent on environment at a fixed stellar mass, but that the amplitude and the slope of the star-forming sequence is similar between the field and groups: in other words, the SSFR-density relation at a fixed stellar mass is primarily driven by the change in the star-forming and quiescent fractions between different environments rather than a global suppression in the star formation rate for the star-forming population. However, when we restrict our sample to the cluster-scale environments (M > 10 14 M ⊙ ), we find a global reduction in the SSFR of the star forming sequence of 17% at 4σ confidence as opposed to its field counterpart. After removing the stellar mass dependence of the quiescent fraction seen in field galaxies, the excess in the quiescent fraction due to the environment quenching in groups and clusters is found to increase with stellar mass, although deeper and larger data from the full PS1/MDS will be required to draw firm conclusions. We argue that these results are in favor of galaxy mergers to be the primary environment quenching mechanism operating in galaxy groups whereas strangulation is able to reproduce the observed trend in the environment quenching efficiency and stellar mass relation seen in clusters. Our results also suggest that the relative importance between mass quenching and environment quenching depends on stellar mass -the mass quenching plays a dominant role in producing quiescent galaxies for more massive galaxies, while less massive galaxies are quenched mostly through the environmental effect, with the transition mass around 1 − 2 × 10 10 M ⊙ in the group/cluster environment.

The correlation function of the distribution of matter in the universe shows, at large scales, baryon acoustic oscillations, which were imprinted prior to recombination. This feature was first detected in the correlation function of the luminous red galaxies (LRG) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The final release (DR7) of the SDSS has been recently made available, and the useful volume is about two times bigger than in the old sample. We present here, for the first time, the redshift space correlation function of this sample at large scales together with that for one shallower, but denser volume-limited subsample drawn from the 2dF redshift survey. We test the reliability of the detection of the acoustic peak at about 100 h −1 Mpc and the behaviour of the correlation function at larger scales by means of careful estimation of errors. We confirm the presence of the peak in the latest data although broader than in previous detections.

The Javalambre-Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS) will scan thousands of square degrees of the northern sky with a unique set of 56 filters using the dedicated 2.55m JST at the Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory. Prior to the installation of the main camera (4.2 deg 2 field-of-view with 1.2 Gpixels), the JST was equipped with the JPAS-Pathfinder, a one CCD camera with a 0.3 deg 2 field-of-view and plate scale of 0.23 arcsec pixel −1 . To demonstrate the scientific potential of J-PAS, the JPAS-Pathfinder camera was used to perform miniJPAS, a ∼1 deg 2 survey of the AEGIS field (along the Extended Groth Strip). The field was observed with the 56 J-PAS filters, which include 54 narrow band (NB, FWHM ∼ 145 Å) and two broader filters extending to the UV and the near-infrared, complemented by the u, g, r, i SDSS broad band (BB) filters. In this miniJPAS survey overview paper, we present the miniJPAS data set (images and catalogs), as we highlight key aspects and applications of these unique spectro-photometric data and describe how to access the public data products. The data parameters reach depths of mag AB 22 − 23.5 in the 54 narrow band filters and up to 24 in the broader filters (5σ in a 3 aperture). The miniJPAS primary catalog contains more than 64, 000 sources detected in the r band and with matched photometry in all other bands. This catalog is 99% complete at r = 23.6 (r = 22.7) mag for point-like (extended) sources. We show that our photometric redshifts have an accuracy better than 1% for all sources up to r = 22.5, and a precision of ≤ 0.3% for a subset consisting of about half of the sample. On this basis, we outline several scientific applications of our data, including the study of spatially-resolved stellar populations of nearby galaxies, the analysis of the large scale structure up to z ∼ 0.9, and the detection of large numbers of clusters and groups. Sub-percent redshift precision can also be reached for quasars, allowing for the study of the large-scale structure to be pushed to z > 2. The miniJPAS survey demonstrates the capability of the J-PAS filter system to accurately characterize a broad variety of sources and paves the way for the upcoming arrival of J-PAS, which will multiply this data by three orders of magnitude. For reference, the miniJPAS data and associated value added catalogs are publicly available http://archive.cefca.es/catalogues/minijpas-pdr201912.