MUSE-ALMA Haloes VII: Survey Science Goals & Design, Data Processing and Final Catalogues

TL;DR

The MUSE-ALMA Haloes survey combines multi-wavelength observations from VLT/MUSE, ALMA, and HST to study the multi-phase circumgalactic medium and galaxy properties, providing comprehensive catalogs and data for understanding baryon distribution.

Contribution

This paper presents the survey design, target selection, data processing, and source catalogues for a multi-facility observational campaign focused on the circumgalactic medium and galaxy characterization.

Findings

Detection of 3658 sources across all fields.

Catalogues include magnitude measurements and spectroscopic redshifts.

Robust characterization of gas and stellar components in galaxy structures.

Abstract

The gas cycling in the circumgalactic regions of galaxies is known to be multi-phase. The MUSE-ALMA Haloes survey gathers a large multi-wavelength observational sample of absorption and emission data with the goal to significantly advance our understanding of the physical properties of such CGM gas. A key component of the MUSE-ALMA Haloes survey is the multi-facility observational campaign conducted with VLT/MUSE, ALMA and HST. MUSE-ALMA Haloes targets comprise 19 VLT/MUSE IFS quasar fields, including 32 $z_{\rm abs}<$0.85 strong absorbers with measured N$_{HI}$ $\geq 10^{18}$ cm$^{\rm -2}$ from UV-spectroscopy. We additionally use a new complementary HST medium program to characterise the stellar content of the galaxies through a 40-orbit three-band UVIS and IR WFC3 imaging. Beyond the absorber-selected targets, we detect 3658 sources all fields combined, including 703 objects with spectroscopic redshifts. This galaxy-selected sample constitutes the main focus of the current paper. We have secured millimeter ALMA observations of some of the fields to probe the molecular gas properties of these objects. Here, we present the overall survey science goals, target selection, observational strategy, data processing and source identification of the full sample. Furthermore, we provide catalogues of magnitude measurements for all objects detected in VLT/MUSE, ALMA and HST broad-band images and associated spectroscopic redshifts derived from VLT/MUSE observations. Together, this data set provides robust characterisation of the neutral atomic gas, molecular gas and stars in the same objects resulting in the baryon census of condensed matter in complex galaxy structures.