The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS)

Abstract

We describe the construction and general features of VIPERS, the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey. This ESO Large Programme is using the Very Large Telescope with the aim of building a spectroscopic sample of ∼100 000 galaxies with i AB < 22.5 and 0.5 < z < 1.5. The survey covers a total area of ∼24 deg 2 within the CFHTLS-Wide W1 and W4 fields. VIPERS is designed to address a broad range of problems in large-scale structure and galaxy evolution, thanks to a unique combination of volume (∼5×10 7 h −3 Mpc 3 ) and sampling rate (∼40%), comparable to state-of-the-art surveys of the local Universe, together with extensive multi-band optical and near-infrared photometry. Here we present the survey design, the selection of the source catalogue and the development of the spectroscopic observations. We discuss in detail the overall selection function that results from the combination of the different constituents of the project. This includes the masks arising from the parent photometric sample and the spectroscopic instrumental footprint, together with the weights needed to account for the sampling and the success rates of the observations. Using the catalogue of 53 608 galaxy redshifts composing the forthcoming VIPERS Public Data Release 1 (PDR-1), we provide a first assessment of the quality of the spectroscopic data. The stellar contamination is found to be only 3.2%, endorsing the quality of the star-galaxy separation process and fully confirming the original estimates based on the VVDS data, which also indicate a galaxy incompleteness from this process of only 1.4%. Using a set of 1215 repeated observations, we estimate an rms redshift error σ z /(1 + z) = 4.7 × 10 −4 and calibrate the internal spectral quality grading. Benefiting from the combination of size and detailed sampling of this dataset, we conclude by presenting a map showing in unprecedented detail the large-scale distribution of galaxies between 5 and 8 billion years ago.

MultiDarkLens Simulations: weak lensing light-cones and data base presentation

“…GLAMER calculates the light paths, shear and convergence without resorting to the weak lensing approximation or the Born (unperturbed light paths) approximation so that the impact of such approximations can be evaluated. The first fields reported on here are in the shape of the W1 and W4 fields observed in the VIPERS survey (Guzzo et al 2014).…”

The 13th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-IV Survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

“…The final WiggleZ results for the 1D BAO peak (Kazin et al 2014) and the 2D BAO peak (Hinton et al 2017) at z=0.44, 0.6, and 0.73 agree with the BOSS results. Still under way is the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey, which focuses on higher redshifts than previous work (0.5<z<1.2) and will overlap in part with eBOSS (Guzzo et al 2014).…”

PhotoWeb redshift: boosting photometric redshift accuracy with large spectroscopic surveys

“…On the other hand, CW mapping at high redshift with spatial resolution less than d inter ∼ 10 cMpc is now within reach with VIPERS (z ∼ 0.8, Guzzo et al 2014;Malavasi et al 2017) or in the near future with PFS (CW traced by the galaxies or by the gas with the tomography technique, Tamura et al 2018), as well as the spectroscopic survey modes of Euclid-Deep (Laureijs et al 2011) and WFIRST (Spergel et al 2015) up to z ∼ 2.5. However, at such a high redshift the current limitation is the accuracy of the photometric redshifts.…”