Sanchez, S. F., Kennicutt, R. C., Gil de Paz, A., van de Ven, G., Vilchez, J. M., Wisotzki, L., Walcher, C. J., Mast, D., Aguerri, J. A. L., Albiol-Perez, S., Alonso-Herrero, A., Alves, J., Bakos, J., Bartakova, T., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Boselli, A., Bomans, D. J., Castillo-Morales, A., Cortijo-Ferrero, C., de Lorenzo-Caceres, A., del Olmo, A., Dettmar, R. -J., Diaz, A., Ellis, S., Falcon-Barroso, J., Flores, H., Gallazzi, A., Garcia-Lorenzo, B., Gonzalez Delgado, R., Gruel, N., Haines, T., Hao, C., Husemann, B., Iglesias-Paramo, J., Jahnke, K., Johnson, B., Jungwiert, B., Kalinova, V., Kehrig, C., Kupko, D., Lopez-Sanchez, A. R., Lyubenova, M., Marino, R. A., Marmol-Queralto, E., Marquez, I., Masegosa, J., Meidt, S., Mendez-Abreu, J., Monreal-Ibero, A., Montijo, C., Mourao, A. M., Palacios-Navarro, G., Papaderos, P., Pasquali, A., Peletier, R., Perez, E., Perez, I., Quirrenbach, A., Relano, M., Rosales-Ortega, F. F., Roth, M. M., Ruiz-Lara, T., Sanchez-Blazquez, P., Sengupta, C., Singh, R., Stanishev, V., Trager, S. C., Vazdekis, A., Viironen, K., Wild, V., Zibetti, S. and Ziegler, B. (2012), "CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey I. Survey
presentation", ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS, 538.
Abstract: The final product of galaxy evolution through cosmic time is the
population of galaxies in the local universe. These galaxies are also
those that can be studied in most detail, thus providing a stringent
benchmark for our understanding of galaxy evolution. Through the huge
success of spectroscopic single-fiber, statistical surveys of the Local
Universe in the last decade, it has become clear, however, that an
authoritative observational description of galaxies will involve
measuring their spatially resolved properties over their full optical
extent for a statistically significant sample. We present here the Calar
Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey, which has been designed
to provide a first step in this direction. We summarize the survey goals
and design, including sample selection and observational strategy. We
also showcase the data taken during the first observing runs (June/July
2010) and outline the reduction pipeline, quality control schemes and
general characteristics of the reduced data.
This survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopic information of
a diameter selected sample of similar to 600 galaxies in the Local
Universe (0.005 < z < 0.03). CALIFA has been designed to allow the
building of two-dimensional maps of the following quantities: (a)
stellar populations: ages and metallicities; (b) ionized gas:
distribution, excitation mechanism and chemical abundances; and (c)
kinematic properties: both from stellar and ionized gas components.
CALIFA uses the PPAK integral field unit (IFU), with a hexagonal
field-of-view of similar to 1.3 square', with a 100% covering factor by
adopting a three-pointing dithering scheme. The optical wavelength range
is covered from 3700 to 7000 angstrom, using two overlapping setups
(V500 and V1200), with different resolutions: R similar to 850 and R
similar to 1650, respectively. CALIFA is a legacy survey, intended for
the community. The reduced data will be released, once the quality has
been guaranteed.
The analyzed data fulfill the expectations of the original observing
proposal, on the basis of a set of quality checks and exploratory
analysis: (i) the final datacubes reach a 3 sigma limiting surface
brightness depth of similar to 23.0 mag/arcsec(2) for the V500 grating
data (similar to 22.8 mag/arcsec(2) for V1200); (ii) about similar to
70% of the covered field-of-view is above this 3 sigma limit; (iii) the
data have a blue-to-red relative flux calibration within a few percent
in most of the wavelength range; (iv) the absolute flux calibration is
accurate within similar to 8% with respect to SDSS; (v) the measured
spectral resolution is similar to 85 km s(-1) for V1200 (similar to 150
km s(-1) for V500); (vi) the estimated accuracy of the wavelength
calibration is similar to 5 km s(-1) for the V1200 data (similar to 10
km s(-1) for the V500 data); (vii) the aperture matched CALIFA and SDSS
spectra are qualitatively and quantitatively similar. Finally, we show
that we are able to carry out all measurements indicated above,
recovering the properties of the stellar populations, the ionized gas
and the kinematics of both components. The associated maps illustrate
the spatial variation of these parameters across the field,
reemphasizing the redshift dependence of single aperture spectroscopic
measurements. We conclude from this first look at the data that CALIFA
will be an important resource for archaeological studies of galaxies in
the Local Universe.
Keywords: techniques: spectroscopic; galaxies: active; galaxies: evolution;
surveys; galaxies: ISM; galaxies: stellar content
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