Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T11:00:59.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“Cosmic Windows” Sky Surveys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2016

J. J. Condon
Affiliation:
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
W. D. Cotton
Affiliation:
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
Q. F. Yin
Affiliation:
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
T. M. Heckman
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Homewood Campus, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
C. J. Lonsdale
Affiliation:
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, 100-22, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
H. E. Smith
Affiliation:
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, 100-22, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
C. D. Martin
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology, MS 405-47, Downs Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
D. Schiminovich
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology, MS 405-47, Downs Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
S. J. Oliver
Affiliation:
University of Sussex, Falmer, GB Brighton BN1 9QH, UK
H. J. A. Röttgering
Affiliation:
Leiden University, Box 9513, NL 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Far-infrared (FIR), ultraviolet (UV), and soft X-ray observations are easily degraded by dust and gas between the source and the telescope. They must be made from space, where they are still affected by the interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy. Fortunately the ISM is quite patchy, with several “cosmic windows” covering ∼ 100 deg2 of sky having exceptionally low interstellar extinction and cirrus emission. Since the universe is nearly isotropic, these windows contain representative samples of cosmologically distant sources and will be the targets of deep multiwavelength studies including SWIRE, GALEX/DIS, and XMM-LSS. Overlapping optical and radio surveys provide essential source identifications, redshifts, morphologies, and continuum spectra. The prototype VLA survey (see http://www.cv.nrao.edu/sirtf_fls/) covers the 5 deg2 SIRTF First-Look Survey (FLS) and is being used to identify the expected FIR sources in advance. Most will be star-forming galaxies obeying the very tight far-infrared/radio correlation and thus continuum radio sources stronger than S ≈ 100 μJy at 1.4 GHz. Proposed VLA surveys covering the remaining “cosmic windows” will be useful for studying the evolution of obscured AGNs, clusters, and other uncommon objects.

Type
Session VI: The Distant Universe
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2005 

References

Chary, R., & Elbaz, D. 2001, ApJ, 556, 562 Google Scholar
Condon, J. J. 1984, ApJ, 287, 461 Google Scholar
Condon, J. J. 1992, ARA&A, 30, 575 Google Scholar
Condon, J. J., Anderson, E., & Broderick, J. J. 1995, AJ, 109, 2318 Google Scholar
Condon, J. J., et al. 1998, AJ, 115, 1693 Google Scholar
Condon, J. J., Cotton, W. D., & Broderick, J. J. 2002, AJ, 124, 675 Google Scholar
Condon, J. J., et al. 2003, AJ, 125, 2411 Google Scholar
Dickey, J. M., & Lockman, F. J. 1990, ARA&A, 28, 215 Google Scholar
Fadda, D., et al. 2002 A&A, 383, 838 Google Scholar
Helou, G., Khan, I. R., Malek, L., & Boehmer, L. 1988, ApJS, 68, 151 Google Scholar
Lonsdale, C. J., et al. 2003, PASP, 115, 897 Google Scholar
Richards, E. A., Kellermann, K. I., Fomalont, E. B., Windhorst, R. A., & Partridge, R. B. 1998, AJ, 116, 1039 Google Scholar
Schlegel, D. J., Finkbeiner, D. P., & Davis, M. 1998, ApJ, 500, 525 Google Scholar
Steidel, C. C., Adelberger, K. L., Giavalisco, M., Dickinson, M., & Pettini, M. 1999, ApJ, 519, 1 Google Scholar
Yun, M. S., & Carilli, C. L. 2002, ApJ, 568, 88 Google Scholar