TY - JOUR
T1 - The arecibo legacy fast ALFA survey. I. Science goals, survey design, and strategy
AU - Giovanelli, Riccardo
AU - Haynes, Martha P.
AU - Kent, Brian R.
AU - Perillat, Philip
AU - Saintonge, Amelie
AU - Brosch, Noah
AU - Catinella, Barbara
AU - Hoffman, G. Lyle
AU - Stierwalt, Sabrina
AU - Spekkens, Kristine
AU - Lerner, Mikael S.
AU - Masters, Karen L.
AU - Momjian, Emmanuel
AU - Rosenberg, Jessica L.
AU - Springob, Christopher M.
AU - Boselli, Alessandro
AU - Charmandaris, Vassilis
AU - Darling, Jeremy K.
AU - Davies, Jonathan
AU - Lambas, Diego Garcia
AU - Gavazzi, Giuseppe
AU - Giovanardi, Carlo
AU - Hardy, Eduardo
AU - Hunt, Leslie K.
AU - Iovino, Angela
AU - Karachentsev, Igor D.
AU - Karachentseva, Valentina E.
AU - Koopmann, Rebecca A.
AU - Marinoni, Christian
AU - Minchin, Robert
AU - Muller, Erik
AU - Putman, Mary
AU - Pantoja, Carmen
AU - Salzer, John J.
AU - Scodeggio, Marco
AU - Skillman, Evan
AU - Solanes, Jose M.
AU - Valotto, Carlos
AU - Van Driel, Wim
AU - Van Zee, Liese
PY - 2005/12
Y1 - 2005/12
N2 - The recently initiated Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey aims to map ∼7000 deg 2 of the high Galactic latitude sky visible from Arecibo, providing a H I line spectral database covering the redshift range between - 1600 and 18,000 km s -1 with ∼5 km s -1 resolution. Exploiting Arecibo's large collecting area and small beam size, ALFALFA is specifically designed to probe the faint end of the H I mass function in the local universe and will provide a census of H I in the surveyed sky area to faint flux limits, making it especially useful in synergy with wide-area surveys conducted at other wavelengths. ALFALFA will also provide the basis for studies of the dynamics of galaxies within the Local Supercluster and nearby superclusters, allow measurement of the H I diameter function, and enable a first wide-area blind search for local H I tidal features, H I absorbers at z < 0.06, and OH megamasers in the redshift range 0.16 < z < 0.25. Although completion of the survey will require some 5 years, public access to the ALFALFA data and data products will be provided in a timely manner, thus allowing its application for studies beyond those targeted by the ALFALFA collaboration. ALFALFA adopts a two-pass, minimum intrusion, drift scan observing technique that samples the same region of sky at two separate epochs to aid in the discrimination of cosmic signals from noise and terrestrial interference. Survey simulations, which take into account large-scale structure in the mass distribution and incorporate experience with the ALFA system gained from tests conducted during its commissioning phase, suggest that ALFALFA will detect on the order of 20,000 extragalactic H I line sources out to z ∼ 0.06, including several hundred with H I masses M HI < 10 7.5 M ⊙.
AB - The recently initiated Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey aims to map ∼7000 deg 2 of the high Galactic latitude sky visible from Arecibo, providing a H I line spectral database covering the redshift range between - 1600 and 18,000 km s -1 with ∼5 km s -1 resolution. Exploiting Arecibo's large collecting area and small beam size, ALFALFA is specifically designed to probe the faint end of the H I mass function in the local universe and will provide a census of H I in the surveyed sky area to faint flux limits, making it especially useful in synergy with wide-area surveys conducted at other wavelengths. ALFALFA will also provide the basis for studies of the dynamics of galaxies within the Local Supercluster and nearby superclusters, allow measurement of the H I diameter function, and enable a first wide-area blind search for local H I tidal features, H I absorbers at z < 0.06, and OH megamasers in the redshift range 0.16 < z < 0.25. Although completion of the survey will require some 5 years, public access to the ALFALFA data and data products will be provided in a timely manner, thus allowing its application for studies beyond those targeted by the ALFALFA collaboration. ALFALFA adopts a two-pass, minimum intrusion, drift scan observing technique that samples the same region of sky at two separate epochs to aid in the discrimination of cosmic signals from noise and terrestrial interference. Survey simulations, which take into account large-scale structure in the mass distribution and incorporate experience with the ALFA system gained from tests conducted during its commissioning phase, suggest that ALFALFA will detect on the order of 20,000 extragalactic H I line sources out to z ∼ 0.06, including several hundred with H I masses M HI < 10 7.5 M ⊙.
KW - Galaxies: distances and redshifts
KW - Galaxies: halos
KW - Galaxies: luminosity function, mass function
KW - Galaxies: photometry
KW - Galaxies: spiral
KW - Radio lines: galaxies
KW - Surveys
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U2 - 10.1086/497431
DO - 10.1086/497431
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33645155171
SN - 0004-6256
VL - 130
SP - 2598
EP - 2612
JO - Astronomical Journal
JF - Astronomical Journal
IS - 6
ER -