Detailed Record



The DESI Bright Galaxy Survey: Final Target Selection, Design, and Validation


Abstract Over the next five years, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will use 10 spectrographs with 5000 fibers on the 4m Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory to conduct the first Stage-IV dark energy galaxy survey. At $z < 0.6$, the DESI Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS) will produce the most detailed map of the Universe during the dark energy dominated epoch with redshifts of >10 million galaxies over 14,000 deg$^2$. In this work, we present and validate the final BGS target selection and survey design. From the Legacy Surveys, BGS will target a $r < 19.5$ magnitude-limited sample (BGS Bright); a fainter $19.5 < r < 20.175$ sample, color-selected to have high redshift efficiency (BGS Faint); and a smaller low-z quasar sample. BGS will observe these targets using exposure times, scaled to achieve uniform completeness, and visit each point on the footprint three times. We use observations from the Survey Validation programs conducted prior to the main survey along with realistic simulations to show that BGS can complete its strategy and make optimal use of `bright' time. We demonstrate that BGS targets have stellar contamination <1% and that their densities do not depend strongly on imaging properties. We also confirm that BGS Bright will achieve >80% fiber assignment efficiency. Finally, we show that BGS Bright and Faint will achieve >95% redshift success rates with no significant dependence on observing conditions. BGS meets the requirements for an extensive range of scientific applications. BGS will yield the most precise Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and Redshift-Space Distortions measurements at $z < 0.4$. It also presents opportunities to exploit new methods that require highly complete and dense galaxy samples (e.g. N-point statistics, multi-tracers). BGS further provides a powerful tool to study galaxy populations and the relations between galaxies and dark matter.
Authors ChangHoon Hahn ORCID , M. J. Wilson ORCID , Omar Ruiz-Macias ORCID , Shaun Cole ORCID , David H. Weinberg ORCID , John Moustakas ORCID , Anthony Kremin ORCID , Jeremy L. Tinker ORCID , Alex Smith ORCID , Risa H. Wechsler ORCID , S. P. Ahlen ORCID , Shadab Alam ORCID , S. Bailey ORCID , D. Brooks ORCID , Andrew P. Cooper ORCID , Tamara M. Davis ORCID , Kyle Dawson ORCID , Arjun Dey ORCID , Biprateep Dey ORCID , Sarah Eftekharzadeh ORCID , Daniel J. Eisenstein ORCID , Kevin Fanning ORCID , Jaime E. Forero-Romero ORCID , Carlos S. Frenk ORCID , E. Gaztañaga ORCID , Satya Gontcho A Gontcho ORCID , J. Guy ORCID , K. Honscheid ORCID , Mustapha Ishak ORCID , S. Juneau ORCID , R. Kehoe ORCID , T. S. Kisner ORCID , Ting-Wen Lan ORCID , Martin Landriau ORCID , L. Le Guillou ORCID , M. E. Levi ORCID , Christophe Magneville , Paul Martini ORCID , Aaron M. Meisner ORCID , Adam D. Myers University of Wyoming , Jundan Nie ORCID , Peder Norberg ORCID , N. Palanque‐Delabrouille ORCID , Will J. Percival ORCID , Claire Poppett , Francisco Prada ORCID , Anand Raichoor ORCID , Ashley J. Ross ORCID , Sasha Safonova ORCID , Christoph Saulder ORCID , Edward F. Schlafly ORCID , David J. Schlegel ORCID , D. Sierra-Porta ORCID , G. Tarlé ORCID , B. A. Weaver , Ch Yèche ORCID , Pauline Zarrouk , Rongpu Zhou ORCID , Zhimin Zhou ORCID , Hu Zou ORCID
Journal Info Institute of Physics | The Astronomical Journal , vol: 165 , iss: 6 , pages: 253 - 253
Publication Date 5/26/2023
ISSN 0004-6256
TypeKeyword Image article
Open Access gold Gold Access
DOI https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/accff8
KeywordsKeyword Image Spectrograph (Score: 0.470223)