_version_ 1866929533037314048
author Danieli, Shany
Kado-Fong, Erin
Huang, Song
Luo, Yifei
Li, Ting S
Kelvin, Lee S
Leauthaud, Alexie
Greene, Jenny E.
Mintz, Abby
Lin, Xiaojing
Li, Jiaxuan
Baldassare, Vivienne
Banerjee, Arka
Bhattacharyya, Joy
Blanco, Diana
Brooks, Alyson
Cai, Zheng
Chen, Xinjun
Cruz, Akaxia
Geda, Robel
Guan, Runquan
Johnson, Sean
Kannawadi, Arun
Kim, Stacy Y.
Li, Mingyu
Lupton, Robert
Mace, Charlie
Medina, Gustavo E.
Pan, Yue
Peter, Annika H. G.
Read, Justin I.
Rosado, Rodrigo Córdova
Seifert, Allen
Wasleske, Erik J.
Wick, Joseph
author_facet Danieli, Shany
Kado-Fong, Erin
Huang, Song
Luo, Yifei
Li, Ting S
Kelvin, Lee S
Leauthaud, Alexie
Greene, Jenny E.
Mintz, Abby
Lin, Xiaojing
Li, Jiaxuan
Baldassare, Vivienne
Banerjee, Arka
Bhattacharyya, Joy
Blanco, Diana
Brooks, Alyson
Cai, Zheng
Chen, Xinjun
Cruz, Akaxia
Geda, Robel
Guan, Runquan
Johnson, Sean
Kannawadi, Arun
Kim, Stacy Y.
Li, Mingyu
Lupton, Robert
Mace, Charlie
Medina, Gustavo E.
Pan, Yue
Peter, Annika H. G.
Read, Justin I.
Rosado, Rodrigo Córdova
Seifert, Allen
Wasleske, Erik J.
Wick, Joseph
contents We present the Merian Survey, an optical imaging survey optimized for studying the physical properties of bright star-forming dwarf galaxies. Merian is carried out with two medium-band filters ($N708$ and $N540$, centered at $708$ and $540$ nm), custom-built for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco telescope. Merian covers $\sim 750\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ of equatorial fields, overlapping with the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) wide, deep, and ultra-deep fields. When combined with the HSC-SSP imaging data ($grizy$), the new Merian DECam medium-band imaging allows for photometric redshift measurements via the detection of H$\rmα$ and [OIII] line emission flux excess in the $N708$ and $N540$ filters, respectively, at $0.06<z<0.10$. We present an overview of the survey design, observations taken to date, data reduction using the LSST Science Pipelines, including aperture-matched photometry for accurate galaxy colors, and a description of the data included in the first data release (DR1). The key science goals of Merian include: probing the dark matter halos of dwarf galaxies out to their virial radii using high signal-to-noise weak lensing profile measurements, decoupling the effects of baryonic processes from dark matter, and understanding the role of black holes in dwarf galaxy evolution. This rich dataset will also offer unique opportunities for studying extremely metal-poor galaxies via their strong [OIII] emission and H$\rmα$ lines, as well as [OIII] emitters at $z\sim 0.4$, and Ly$\rmα$ emitters at $z\sim 3.3$ and $z\sim 4.8$. Merian showcases the power of utilizing narrow and medium-band filters alongside broad-band filters for sky imaging, demonstrating their synergistic capacity to unveil astrophysical insights across diverse astrophysical phenomena.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_01884
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Merian: A Wide-Field Imaging Survey of Dwarf Galaxies at z~0.06-0.10
Danieli, Shany
Kado-Fong, Erin
Huang, Song
Luo, Yifei
Li, Ting S
Kelvin, Lee S
Leauthaud, Alexie
Greene, Jenny E.
Mintz, Abby
Lin, Xiaojing
Li, Jiaxuan
Baldassare, Vivienne
Banerjee, Arka
Bhattacharyya, Joy
Blanco, Diana
Brooks, Alyson
Cai, Zheng
Chen, Xinjun
Cruz, Akaxia
Geda, Robel
Guan, Runquan
Johnson, Sean
Kannawadi, Arun
Kim, Stacy Y.
Li, Mingyu
Lupton, Robert
Mace, Charlie
Medina, Gustavo E.
Pan, Yue
Peter, Annika H. G.
Read, Justin I.
Rosado, Rodrigo Córdova
Seifert, Allen
Wasleske, Erik J.
Wick, Joseph
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We present the Merian Survey, an optical imaging survey optimized for studying the physical properties of bright star-forming dwarf galaxies. Merian is carried out with two medium-band filters ($N708$ and $N540$, centered at $708$ and $540$ nm), custom-built for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco telescope. Merian covers $\sim 750\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ of equatorial fields, overlapping with the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) wide, deep, and ultra-deep fields. When combined with the HSC-SSP imaging data ($grizy$), the new Merian DECam medium-band imaging allows for photometric redshift measurements via the detection of H$\rmα$ and [OIII] line emission flux excess in the $N708$ and $N540$ filters, respectively, at $0.06<z<0.10$. We present an overview of the survey design, observations taken to date, data reduction using the LSST Science Pipelines, including aperture-matched photometry for accurate galaxy colors, and a description of the data included in the first data release (DR1). The key science goals of Merian include: probing the dark matter halos of dwarf galaxies out to their virial radii using high signal-to-noise weak lensing profile measurements, decoupling the effects of baryonic processes from dark matter, and understanding the role of black holes in dwarf galaxy evolution. This rich dataset will also offer unique opportunities for studying extremely metal-poor galaxies via their strong [OIII] emission and H$\rmα$ lines, as well as [OIII] emitters at $z\sim 0.4$, and Ly$\rmα$ emitters at $z\sim 3.3$ and $z\sim 4.8$. Merian showcases the power of utilizing narrow and medium-band filters alongside broad-band filters for sky imaging, demonstrating their synergistic capacity to unveil astrophysical insights across diverse astrophysical phenomena.
title Merian: A Wide-Field Imaging Survey of Dwarf Galaxies at z~0.06-0.10
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.01884