The 6dF Galaxy Survey: Final Redshift Release (DR3) and Southern Large-Scale Structures

TL;DR

The 6dF Galaxy Survey's final data release provides extensive redshift and large-scale structure maps of the southern sky, enhancing understanding of local universe structures with nearly complete galaxy samples.

Contribution

This paper presents the final release of the 6dF Galaxy Survey data, including a large catalog of redshifts and detailed maps of large-scale structures in the southern hemisphere.

Findings

Identification of large-scale structures in the local universe.

Confirmation of underdense regions in specific sky areas.

Provision of a comprehensive database for future research.

Abstract

We report the final redshift release of the 6dF Galaxy Survey, a combined redshift and peculiar velocity survey over the southern sky (|b|>10 deg). Its 136,304 spectra have yielded 110,256 new extragalactic redshifts and a new catalogue of 125,071 galaxies making near-complete samples with (K, H, J, r_F, b_J) <= (12.65, 12.95, 13.75, 15.60, 16.75). The median redshift of the survey is 0.053. Survey data, including images, spectra, photometry and redshifts, are available through an online database. We describe changes to the information in the database since earlier interim data releases. Future releases will include velocity dispersions, distances and peculiar velocities for the brightest early-type galaxies, comprising about 10% of the sample. Here we provide redshift maps of the southern local universe with z<=0.1, showing nearby large-scale structures in hitherto unseen detail. A number of regions known previously to have a paucity of galaxies are confirmed as significantly underdense regions. The URL of the 6dFGS database is http://www-wfau.roe.ac.uk/6dFGS