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Summary

The Cambridge- Carnegie-Toronto-CalTech Las Campanas Infra-Red survey(LCIR) survey is an ambitious IR driven survey program that aims to tackle several major outstanding problems in the understanding of the evolution of massive galaxies and the growth of large-scale structure in the crucial redshift range 1 to 2.

The project is made possible by the development in Cambridge of CIRSI a panoramic wide field IR camera. The Cambridge Infra Red Survey Instrument(CIRSI) is based on a moisaic of 4 Rockwell 1024x1024 HyCdTe arrays and is the largest near IR camera in existence. In collaboration with the staff of Carnegie Observatoraties, CIRSI is being used to carry out a large wide field IR survey in the J, H and K wavebands. This data is being combined with optical UBVRIZ CCD data obtained at CTIO, Palomar and the WHT.

The survey is designed to detect early type galaxies 1 magnitude fainter than L* out to redshifts of 2. The near IR magnitude limits(5sigma) are:

The survey consists of 5 primary survey regions spread out in RA and a number of smaller specially selected regions. The total area of the survey is: Optical data is also being obtained in the following wavebands: The major difference between this multi-band survey and various others underway is the unique combination of large area and the faint limiting IR magnitude. The IR band is crucial to the unbiased and efficient selection of z>1 galaxies and crucially we can use the K luminosity as a measure of the integrated stellar mass. The CIRSI survey fills a prominent gap between other wide field but shallow IR surveys (e.g. we go 1.5 magnitudes deeper than the NOAO Deep Wide Survey) and deep surveys such as the HDF over very narrow fields.

The K magnitude limitand the square degree area of the survey were chosen to allow the detection of $\sim 3000$ evolved galaxies in the range 1 < z < 2 (Cowie et al 1994, Elston et al 1997) and obtain a (5sigma) measurement of their correlation function on Mpc scales.

Survey Goals

The survey has primarily been designed to deliver large samples of galaxies in the hitherto uncharted redshift range $1 < z < 2$.

Specific goals include:


Observing Plan

Observations are being carried out in Spring 99, Fall 99, Spring 2000 and Fall 2000

Wavebands and limiting magnitudes


 band                           Nominal limiting mag
                           5sigma is 1.5 diameter aperture
  
  U   from WHT                        [24.5]
  B   from WHT                        [25.5]
  V   from CTIO BTC                    26.5
  R   from CTIO BTC                    26.0
  I   from CTIO BTC                    25.0
  z   from CTIO BTC                    24.0
  J   CIRSI on DuPont                  22.9
  H   CIRSI on DuPont                 [21.7]
  K   CIRSI on DuPont                  21.2

Priority bands are VRIzJK 
  

Survey Fields

Each CIRSI full mosiac on the DuPont is 13'x13' => 170min^2
                              J2000.0
  • NOAO Deep 02 10 00.0 -04 30 00 Primary survey region
  • Abell 370 02 40 00.0 +01 30 00
  • AXAF Deep Survey 03 32 22.0 -27 48 00 Primary survey region
  • NTT Deep Field 12 05 26.0 -07 43 30 Primary survey region
  • IOA 1511 15 23 31.0 +00 14 58 Primary survey region
  • SSA22 22 17 54.0 +00 14 34
  • NICMOS 22hr 22 20 17.2 -24 43 27
  • HDF South 22 32 56.2 -60 33 03 Primary survey region Notes: NTT deep field is centred near the z=4.7 QSO BR J1205-0742; 12 05 23.11 -07 42 32.5. The formal centre of the NTT-SUSI_SOFI Deep Field is: RA 12h:05m:26s and Dec-07o:43':27'' see NTT-SOFI Deep Field
  • NOAO Deep Deep Wide-Field Survey Home Page
  • HDF South Home Page
  • VIRMOS Deep Survey

    Field visibility

  • Internal Team Pages

    Richard McMahon' Homepage
    IOA Instrumentation Group Homepage | CIRSI Homepage

    Richard McMahon, rgm@ast.cam.ac.uk
    Last modified: Fri Mar 30 16:14:01 2001