Jeffrey M. Kubo

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey coadd: 275 deg2 of deep sloan digital sky survey imaging on stripe 82

We present details of the construction and characterization of the coaddition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 ugriz imaging data. This survey consists of 275 deg of repeated scanning by the SDSS camera of 2.5◦ of δ over −50◦ ≤ α ≤ 60◦ centered on the Celestial Equator. Each piece of sky has ∼ 20 runs contributing and thus reaches ∼ 2 magnitudes fainter than the SDSS single pass data, i.e. to r ∼ 23.5 for galaxies. We discuss the image processing of the coaddition, the modeling of the PSF, the calibration, and the production of standard SDSS catalogs. The data have r-band median seeing of 1.1′′, and are calibrated to ≤ 1%. Star color-color, number counts, and psf size vs modelled size plots show the modelling of the PSF is good enough for precision 5-band photometry. Structure in the psf-model vs magnitude plot show minor psf mis-modelling that leads to a region where stars are being mis-classified as galaxies, and this is verified using VVDS spectroscopy. As this is a wide area deep survey there are a variety of uses for the data, including galactic structure, photometric redshift computation, cluster finding and cross wavelength measurements, weak lensing cluster mass calibrations, and cosmic shear measurements. Subject headings: atlases — catalogs — surveysWe present details of the construction and characterization of the coaddition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 ugriz imaging data. This survey consists of 275 deg2 of repeated scanning by the SDSS camera over –50° ≤ α ≤ 60° and –125 ≤ δ ≤ +125 centered on the Celestial Equator. Each piece of sky has ~20 runs contributing and thus reaches ~2 mag fainter than the SDSS single pass data, i.e., to r ~ 23.5 for galaxies. We discuss the image processing of the coaddition, the modeling of the point-spread function (PSF), the calibration, and the production of standard SDSS catalogs. The data have an r-band median seeing of 11 and are calibrated to ≤1%. Star color-color, number counts, and PSF size versus modeled size plots show that the modeling of the PSF is good enough for precision five-band photometry. Structure in the PSF model versus magnitude plot indicates minor PSF modeling errors, leading to misclassification of stars as galaxies, as verified using VVDS spectroscopy. There are a variety of uses for this wide-angle deep imaging data, including galactic structure, photometric redshift computation, cluster finding and cross wavelength measurements, weak lensing cluster mass calibrations, and cosmic shear measurements.

The Mass Of The Coma Cluster From Weak Lensing In The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present a weak lensing analysis of the Coma Cluster using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release Five. Complete imaging of a {approx} 200 square degree region is used to measure the tangential shear of this cluster. The shear is fit to an NFW model and we find a virial radius of r{sub 200} = 1.99{sup +0.21}{sub -0.22}h{sup -1}Mpc which corresponds to a virial mass of M{sub 200} = 1.88{sup +0.65}{sub -0.56} x 10{sup 15}h{sup -1}M{circle_dot}. We additionally compare our weak lensing measurement to the virial mass derived using dynamical techniques, and find they are in agreement. This is the lowest redshift, largest angle weak lensing measurement of an individual cluster to date.

THE SDSS CO-ADD: COSMIC SHEAR MEASUREMENT

Stripe 82 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey was observed multiple times, allowing deeper images to be constructed by coadding the data. Here we analyze the ellipticities of background galaxies in this 275 square degree region, searching for evidence of distortions due to cosmic shear. The E-mode is detected in both real and Fourier space with > 5-{sigma} significance on degree scales, while the B-mode is consistent with zero as expected. The amplitude of the signal constrains the combination of the matter density {Omega}{sub m} and fluctuation amplitude {sigma}{sub 8} to be {Omega}{sub m}{sup 0.7} {sigma}{sub 8} = 0.276{sub -0.050}{sup +0.036}.

Discovery of A Very Bright, Strongly-Lensed z=2 Galaxy in the SDSS DR5

We report on the discovery of a very bright z = 2.00 star-forming galaxy that is strongly lensed by a foreground z = 0.422 luminous red galaxy (LRG), SDSS J120602.09+514229.5. This system, nicknamed the Clone, was found in a systematic search for bright arcs lensed by LRGs and brightest cluster galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5 sample. Follow-up observations on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope on Mauna Kea and the Astrophysical Research Consortium 3.5 m telescope at Apache Point Observatory confirmed the lensing nature of this system. A simple lens model for the system, assuming a singular isothermal ellipsoid mass distribution, yields an Einstein radius of ?Ein = 3.82 ? 003 or 14.8 ? 0.1 h ?1 kpc at the lens redshift. The total projected mass enclosed within the Einstein radius is 2.10 ? 0.03 ? 1012 h ?1 M ?, and the magnification factor for the source galaxy is 27 ? 1. Combining the lens model with our gVriz photometry, we find a (unlensed) star formation rate (SFR) for the source galaxy of 32 h ?1 M ? yr?1, adopting a fiducial constant SFR model with an age of 100 Myr and E(B ? V) = 0.25. With an apparent magnitude of r = 19.8, this system is among the very brightest lensed z ? 2 galaxies, and provides an excellent opportunity to pursue detailed studies of the physical properties of an individual high-redshift star-forming galaxy.

INTRINSIC ALIGNMENT OF CLUSTER GALAXIES: THE REDSHIFT EVOLUTION

We present measurements of two types of cluster galaxy alignments based on a volume limited and highly pure (≥90%) sample of clusters from the GMBCG catalog derived from Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR7). We detect a clear brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) alignment (the alignment of major axis of the BCG toward the distribution of cluster satellite galaxies). We find that the BCG alignment signal becomes stronger as the redshift and BCG absolute magnitude decrease and becomes weaker as BCG stellar mass decreases. No dependence of the BCG alignment on cluster richness is found. We can detect a statistically significant (≥3σ) satellite alignment (the alignment of the major axes of the cluster satellite galaxies toward the BCG) only when we use the isophotal fit position angles (P.A.s), and the satellite alignment depends on the apparent magnitudes rather than the absolute magnitudes of the BCGs. This suggests that the detected satellite alignment based on isophotal P.A.s from the SDSS pipeline is possibly due to the contamination from the diffuse light of nearby BCGs. We caution that this should not be simply interpreted as non-existence of the satellite alignment, but rather that we cannot detect them with our current photometric SDSS data. We perform our measurements on both SDSS r-band and i-band data, but do not observe a passband dependence of the alignments.

The SDSS Coadd: A Galaxy Photometric Redshift Catalog

We present and describe a catalog of galaxy photometric redshifts (photo-zs) for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Coadd Data. We use the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique to calculate photo-zs and the Nearest Neighbor Error (NNE) method to estimate photo-z errors for {approx} 13 million objects classified as galaxies in the coadd with r < 24.5. The photo-z and photo-z error estimators are trained and validated on a sample of {approx} 89, 000 galaxies that have SDSS photometry and spectroscopic redshifts measured by the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7), the Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology Field Galaxy Survey (CNOC2), the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe Data Release 3(DEEP2 DR3), the SDSS-IIIs Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), the Visible imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph - Very Large Telescope Deep Survey (VVDS) and the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. For the best ANN methods we have tried, we find that 68% of the galaxies in the validation set have a photo-z error smaller than {sigma}{sub 68} = 0.036. After presenting our results and quality tests, we provide a short guide for users accessing the public data.

The Sloan Bright Arcs Survey : Six Strongly Lensed Galaxies at z=0.4-1.4

We present new results of our program to systematically search for strongly lensed galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging data. In this study six strong lens systems are presented which we have confirmed with followup spectroscopy and imaging using the 3.5m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory. Preliminary mass models indicate that the lenses are group-scale systems with velocity dispersions ranging from 466?878 km s{sup -1} at z = 0.17-0.45 which are strongly lensing source galaxies at z = 0.4-1.4. Galaxy groups are a relatively new mass scale just beginning to be probed with strong lensing. Our sample of lenses roughly doubles the confirmed number of group-scale lenses in the SDSS and complements ongoing strong lens searches in other imaging surveys such as the CFHTLS (Cabanac et al. 2007). As our arcs were discovered in the SDSS imaging data they are all bright (r {approx_equal} 22), making them ideally suited for detailed follow-up studies.

THE SLOAN BRIGHT ARCS SURVEY: DISCOVERY OF SEVEN NEW STRONGLY LENSED GALAXIES FROM z = 0.66-2.94

We report the discovery of seven new, very bright gravitational lens systems from our ongoing gravitational lens search, the Sloan Bright Arcs Survey (SBAS). Two of the systems are confirmed to have high source redshifts z = 2.19 and z = 2.94. Three other systems lie at intermediate redshift with z = 1.33, 1.82, 1.93 and two systems are at low redshift z = 0.66, 0.86. The lensed source galaxies in all of these systems are bright, with i-band magnitudes ranging from 19.73 to 22.06. We present the spectrum of each of the source galaxies in these systems along with estimates of the Einstein radius for each system. The foreground lens in most systems is identified by a red sequence based cluster finder as a galaxy group; one system is identified as a moderately rich cluster. In total, SBAS has now discovered 19 strong lens systems in the SDSS imaging data, 8 of which are among the highest surface brightness z {approx_equal} 2-3 galaxies known.

The Sloan Nearby Cluster Weak Lensing Survey

We describe and present initial results of a weak lensing survey of nearby (

THE SLOAN BRIGHT ARCS SURVEY: FOUR STRONGLY LENSED GALAXIES WITH REDSHIFT > 2

\rm{z}\lesssim0.1