AGES: The AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey

TL;DR

The AGES survey provides a comprehensive spectroscopic redshift catalog for galaxies and AGN in the Bootes field, covering multiple wavelengths and including detailed selection procedures and photometric redshift estimates.

Contribution

This paper presents the first large-scale, multi-wavelength spectroscopic redshift survey of the Bootes field with detailed selection criteria and comprehensive data products.

Findings

Redshift catalog of 23,745 galaxies and AGN.

Median galaxy redshift of 0.31 with 90% between 0.085 and 0.66.

Identification of 4,764 AGN and quasars with redshifts up to 4.

Abstract

The AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey (AGES) is a redshift survey covering, in its standard fields, 7.7 square degrees of the Bootes field of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey (NDWFS). The final sample consists of 23745 redshifts. There are well-defined galaxy samples in ten bands (the Bw, R, I, J, K, IRAC 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 micron and MIPS 24 micron bands) to a limiting magnitude of I<20 mag for spectroscopy. For these galaxies, we obtained 18163 redshifts from a sample of 35200 galaxies, where random sparse sampling was used to define statistically complete sub-samples in all ten photometric bands. The median galaxy redshift is 0.31, and 90% of the redshifts are in the range 0.085<z<0.66. AGN were selected as radio, X-ray, IRAC mid-IR and MIPS 24 micron sources to fainter limiting magnitudes (I<22.5 mag for point sources). Redshifts were obtained for 4764 quasars and galaxies with AGN signatures, with 2926, 1718, 605, 119 and 13 above redshifts of 0.5, 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. We detail all the AGES selection procedures and present the complete spectroscopic redshift catalogs, spectra, and spectral energy distribution decompositions. The photometric redshift estimates are for all sources in the AGES samples.