The High-Mass End of the Red Sequence at z~0.55 from SDSS-III/BOSS: completeness, bimodality and luminosity function

We have developed an analytical method based on forward-modeling techniques to characterize the high-mass end of the red sequence (RS) galaxy population at redshift \(z\sim0.55\), from the DR10 BOSS CMASS spectroscopic sample, which comprises \(\sim600,000\) galaxies. The method, which follows an un...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2016-05
Main Authors: Montero-Dorta, Antonio D, Bolton, Adam S, Brownstein, Joel R, Swanson, Molly, Dawson, Kyle, Prada, Francisco, Eisenstein, Daniel, Maraston, Claudia, Thomas, Daniel, Comparat, Johan, Chuang, Chia-Hsun, McBride, Cameron K, Favole, Ginevra, Guo, Hong, Rodriguez-Torres, Sergio, Schneider, Donald P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomical models
Blurring
Clustering
Color
Completeness
Covariance matrix
Galactic evolution
Galaxies
Luminosity
Photometry
Red shift
Sky surveys (astronomy)
Uncertainty
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Summary:We have developed an analytical method based on forward-modeling techniques to characterize the high-mass end of the red sequence (RS) galaxy population at redshift \(z\sim0.55\), from the DR10 BOSS CMASS spectroscopic sample, which comprises \(\sim600,000\) galaxies. The method, which follows an unbinned maximum likelihood approach, allows the deconvolution of the intrinsic CMASS colour-colour-magnitude distributions from photometric errors and selection effects. This procedure requires modeling the covariance matrix for the i-band magnitude, g-r colour and r-i colour using Stripe 82 multi-epoch data. Our results indicate that the error-deconvolved intrinsic RS distribution is consistent, within the photometric uncertainties, with a single point (\(
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1410.5854