The Herschel Stripe 82 Survey (HerS): Maps and Early Catalog

TL;DR

The Herschel Stripe 82 Survey provides detailed infrared maps and a catalog of thousands of sources, enabling studies of galaxy evolution and dark matter correlations in a well-studied sky region.

Contribution

First maps and catalog from HerS, covering 79 deg$^2$ at multiple wavelengths, facilitating cross-correlation with other cosmological data.

Findings

Catalog contains 33,000 sources detected at >3σ significance.

Maps enable analysis of infrared galaxy distribution and dark matter bias.

Data supports future cosmological and galaxy evolution studies.

Abstract

We present the first set of maps and band-merged catalog from the Herschel Stripe 82 Survey (HerS). Observations at 250, 350, and 500 micron were taken with the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) instrument aboard the Herschel Space Observatory. HerS covers 79 deg$^2$ along the SDSS Stripe 82 to a depth of 13.0, 12.9, and 14.8 mJy beam$^{-1}$ (including confusion) at 250, 350, and 500 micron, respectively. HerS was designed to measure correlations with external tracers of the dark matter density field --- either point-like (i.e., galaxies selected from radio to X-ray) or extended (i.e., clusters and gravitational lensing) --- in order to measure the bias and redshift distribution of intensities of infrared-emitting dusty star-forming galaxies and AGN. By locating HeRS in Stripe 82, we maximize the overlap with available and upcoming cosmological surveys. The band-merged catalog contains 3.3x10$^4$ sources detected at a significance of >3 $\sigma$ (including confusion noise). The maps and catalog are available at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/hers/