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"A Spitzer Public Legacy survey of the UKIDSS Ultra Deep Survey"
Principal Investigator: James Dunlop (Institute for Astronomy, Royal Obs. Edinburgh)
Total Observatory Time: 292 hours
We propose a public legacy program of Spitzer IRAC+MIPS imaging of the ~1 square
degree UKIDSS Ultra Deep Survey (UDS). The UDS is by far the largest, deep
near-infrared (JHK) survey in existence, and the first capable of sampling truly
representative cosmological volumes (100x100 Mpc) out to the highest redshifts
(z>6). The UDS is an uniquely powerful resource for studying galaxy formation
and evolution and already contains ~100,000 galaxies (>20,000 at z>2). However,
the key to unlocking the full potential of the UDS lies in combining the ground-
based near-infrared data with appropriately deep Spitzer imaging. The proposed
Spitzer data will be invaluable for providing robust measurements of both
stellar mass and starformation rates, and will allow the first statistical study
of the evolution of the high-mass end of the galaxy mass function out to z=6.
Moreover, the proposed Spitzer imaging will allow the evolution of starforming
and passive galaxies to be studied separately, and help delineate the link
between stellar mass assembly and starformation at high redshift. The UDS will
continue to provide ever-increasing depth for the next 5 years, and will be the
deepest, contiguous degree-scale infrared survey for the foreseeable future.
This proposal is ideally timed to allow immediate and full exploitation of the
first world-public UDS release in January 2008, but will also provide a uniquely
powerful data-set of lasting legacy value for future exploitation with JWST and
ALMA in the next decade.
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