OzDES multi-object fibre spectroscopy for the Dark Energy Survey: Results and second data release

TL;DR

OzDES is a six-year spectroscopic survey that collected extensive redshift and spectral data for thousands of celestial sources, supporting cosmological and black hole research in conjunction with the Dark Energy Survey.

Contribution

This paper details the OzDES survey's methodology, data release, and its role in cosmology and black hole studies, highlighting its scale and data quality.

Findings

Second data release includes nearly 30,000 redshifts and 375,000 spectra.

Survey monitored 771 AGN and classified hundreds of supernovae.

Data will be used to measure Universe's expansion and black hole masses.

Abstract

We present a description of the Australian Dark Energy Survey (OzDES) and summarise the results from its six years of operations. Using the 2dF fibre positioner and AAOmega spectrograph on the 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope, OzDES has monitored 771 AGN, classified hundreds of supernovae, and obtained redshifts for thousands of galaxies that hosted a transient within the 10 deep fields of the Dark Energy Survey. We also present the second OzDES data release, containing the redshifts of almost 30,000 sources, some as faint as $r_{\mathrm AB}=24$ mag, and 375,000 individual spectra. These data, in combination with the time-series photometry from the Dark Energy Survey, will be used to measure the expansion history of the Universe out to $z\sim1.2$ and the masses of hundreds of black holes out to $z\sim4$. OzDES is a template for future surveys that combine simultaneous monitoring of targets with wide-field imaging cameras and wide-field multi-object spectrographs.