The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)

Abstract

Final published version including significant revisions. Twenty four pages, fourteen figures. Original version April 2006; final version published in MNRAS August 2007We describe the goals, design, implementation, and initial progress of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), a seven year sky survey which began in May 2005, using the UKIRT Wide Field Camera. It is a portfolio of five survey components covering various combinations of the filter set ZYJHK and H_2. The Large Area Survey, the Galactic Clusters Survey, and the Galactic Plane Survey cover approximately 7000 square degrees to a depth of K~18; the Deep Extragalactic Survey covers 35 square degrees to K~21, and the Ultra Deep Survey covers 0.77 square degrees to K~23. Summed together UKIDSS is 12 times larger in effective volume than the 2MASS survey. The prime aim of UKIDSS is to provide a long term astronomical legacy database; the design is however driven by a series of specific goals -- for example to find the nearest and faintest sub-stellar objects; to discover Population II brown dwarfs, if they exist; to determine the substellar mass function; to break the z=7 quasar barrier; to determine the epoch of re-ionisation; to measure the growth of structure from z=3 to the present day; to determine the epoch of spheroid formation; and to map the Milky Way through the dust, to several kpc. The survey data are being uniformly processed, and released in stages through the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA : http://surveys.roe.ac.uk/wsa). Before the formal survey began, UKIRT and the UKIDSS consortium collaborated in obtaining and analysing a series of small science verification (SV) projects to complete the commissioning of the camera. We show some results from these SV projects in order to demonstrate the likely power of the eventual complete survey. Finally, using the data from the First Data Release we assess how well UKIDSS is meeting its design targets so far

Circumstellar debris and pollution at white dwarf stars

“…A numerically more robust approach was taken by Girven et al (2011), by cross-correlating 16 785 DA white dwarfs with T eff > 8000 K from the SDSS with the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (Lawrence et al, 2007). This resulted in the identification of 1884 stars with both H-and K-band data whose ugrizH photometry could be fitted with spectral models to search for excess emission in the K band, representing an order of magnitude increase over all white dwarfs targeted by Spitzer.…”

The Drop During Less Than 300 Days of a Dusty White Dwarf's Infrared Luminosity

“…WD J0959−0200 was observed in 2005 with the Wide Field Camera (WFCAM) as part of the Large Area Survey (LAS) in the UKIDSS (Lawrence et al 2007). Four broadband photometric observations at Y, J, H , and K with an exposure time of 40 s each were obtained.…”

The Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS): Survey Definition and Goals*

“…The Deep Extragalactic Survey (DXS) is part of UKIDSS (Lawrence et al 2007) and will cover the Lockman and EN1 fields to 23.1 and 22.5 (AB) in J and K, respectively. As of October 2011, Data Release 7 is available to the entire astronomical community.…”

“…The five SERVS fields are centered on, or close to, those of corresponding fields surveyed by the shallower Spitzer Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE; Lonsdale et al 2003), and they overlap with several other major surveys covering wavelengths from the X-ray to the radio. Of particular importance is near-infrared data, as these allow accurate photometric redshifts to be obtained for high redshifts (van Dokkum et al 2006;Brammer et al 2008;Ilbert et al 2009;Cardamone et al 2010): SERVS overlaps exactly with the 12 deg 2 of the VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VISTA VIDEO; Jarvis et al 2012, in preparation) survey (Z, Y , J, H, and K s bands) in the south and is covered by the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS; Lawrence et al 2007) survey (J, K) in the north. SERVS also has good overlap with the Herschel Multitiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES; Oliver et al 2012) in the far-infrared, which covers the SWIRE and other Spitzer survey fields, with deeper subfields within many of the SERVS fields.…”