GLACiAR, an open-source python tool for simulations of source recovery and completeness in galaxy surveys

Abstract

The luminosity function is a fundamental observable for characterizing how galaxies form and evolve throughout the cosmic history. One key ingredient to derive this measurement from the number counts in a survey is the characterization of the completeness and redshift selection functions for the observations. In this paper we present GLACiAR, an open python tool available on GitHub to estimate the completeness and selection functions in galaxy surveys. The code is tailored for multiband imaging surveys aimed at searching for high-redshift galaxies through the Lyman Break technique, but it can be applied broadly. The code generates artificial galaxies that follow Sersic profiles with different indexes and with customizable size, redshift and spectral energy distribution properties, adds them to input images, and measures the recovery rate. To illustrate this new software tool, we apply it to quantify the completeness and redshift selection functions for J-dropouts sources (redshift z~10 galaxies) in the Hubble Space Telescope Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies Survey (BoRG). Our comparison with a previous completeness analysis on the same dataset shows overall agreement, but also highlights how different modelling assumptions for artificial sources can impact completeness estimates.

Accepted for publciation in PASA. 14 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (14)

• UV Luminosity Functions at redshifts z~4 to z~10: 10000 Galaxies from HST Legacy Fields
• The Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• The Frontier Fields: Survey Design
• A Remarkably Luminous Galaxy at z=11.1 Measured with Hubble Space Telescope Grism Spectroscopy
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• A Geometrically Supported $z\sim 10$ Candidate Multiply-Imaged by the Hubble Frontier Fields Cluster Abell 2744
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• The Luminosity Function at z~8 from 97 Y-band dropouts: Inferences About Reionization
• Bright galaxies at Hubble's redshift detection frontier: Preliminary results and design from the redshift z~9-10 BoRG pure-parallel HST survey
• On Contamination and Completeness in z>5 Lyman Break Galaxy Surveys
• Galaxy candidates at z ~ 10 in archival data from the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG[z8]) survey
• J- and Ks-band Galaxy Counts and Color Distributions in the AKARI North Ecliptic Pole Field

Cited by in corpus (11)

• RELICS: Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey
• Galaxy Build-up in the first 1.5 Gyr of Cosmic History: Insights from the Stellar Mass Function at $z\sim 4-9$ from JWST NIRCam Observations
• The bright-end galaxy candidates at z ~ 9 from 79 independent HST fields
• Unveiling the hidden universe with JWST: The contribution of dust-obscured galaxies to the stellar mass function at $z\sim 3-8$
• SuperBoRG: Exploration of point sources at $z\sim 8$ in HST parallel fields
• The size-luminosity relation of lensed galaxies at $z=6-9$ in the Hubble Frontier Fields
• The UV luminosity functions of Bright z>8 Galaxies: Determination from ~0.41 deg2 of HST Observations along ~sim 300 independent sightlines
• Exploring Cosmic Dawn with PANORAMIC I: The Bright End of the UVLF at $z\sim 9-17$
• Unresolved z~8 point sources and their impact on the bright end of the galaxy luminosity function
• RELICS: Small Lensed $z\ge 5.5$ Galaxies Selected as Potential Lyman Continuum Leakers
• A quantitative assessment of completeness correction methods and public release of a versatile simulation code