The missing light of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Abstract

The Hubble Ultra Deep field (HUDF) is the deepest region ever observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. With the main objective of unveiling the nature of galaxies up to $z\sim 7-8$, the observing and reduction strategy have focused on the properties of small and unresolved objects, rather than the outskirts of the largest objects, which are usually over-subtracted. We aim to create a new set of WFC3/IR mosaics of the HUDF using novel techniques to preserve the properties of the low surface brightness regions. We created ABYSS: a pipeline that optimises the estimate and modelling of low-level systematic effects to obtain a robust background subtraction. We have improved four key points in the reduction: 1) creation of new absolute sky flat fields, 2) extended persistence models, 3) dedicated sky background subtraction and 4) robust co-adding. The new mosaics successfully recover the low surface brightness structure removed on the previous HUDF published reductions. The amount of light recovered with a mean surface brightness dimmer than $\overline{\mu }=26$ mar arcsec${}^{-2}$ is equivalent to a m=19 mag source when compared to the XDF and a m=20 mag compared to the HUDF12. We present a set of techniques to reduce ultra-deep images ($\mu >32.5$ mag arcsec${}^{-2}$, $3\sigma$ in $10\times 10$ arcsec boxes), that successfully allow to detect the low surface brightness structure of extended sources on ultra deep surveys. The developed procedures are applicable to HST, JWST, EUCLID and many other space and ground-based observatories. We will make the final ABYSS WFC3/IR HUDF mosaics publicly available at http://www.iac.es/proyecto/abyss/.

Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (68)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• Binary companions of evolved stars in APOGEE DR14: Search method and catalog of ~5,000 companions
• The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey: Initial Results From Optical and Near-Infrared Imaging
• Properties of galaxies reproduced by a hydrodynamic simulation
• Tracing Galaxy Formation with Stellar Halos I: Methods
• The Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• Drizzle: A Method for the Linear Reconstruction of Undersampled Images
• The remnants of galaxy formation from a panoramic survey of the region around M31
• The Chandra Deep Field South: the 1 Million Second
• First Data Release of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program
• The Chandra Deep Field-South Survey: 4 Ms Source Catalogs
• Galactic stellar haloes in the CDM model
• The Chandra Deep Field-South Survey: 7 Ms Source Catalogs
• The Illustris Simulation: Public Data Release
• Spectroscopy of Lyman Break Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field
• Tracing Galaxy Formation with Stellar Halos II: Relating Substructure in Phase- and Abundance-Space to Accretion Histories
• A deep ALMA image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• Beyond Inside-Out Growth: Formation and Evolution of Disk Outskirts
• The structure of galactic disks: Studying late-type spiral galaxies using SDSS
• Discovery of z~8 Galaxies in the HUDF from ultra-deep WFC3/IR Observations
• The MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey: I. Survey description, data reduction and source detection
• The HST eXtreme Deep Field XDF: Combining all ACS and WFC3/IR Data on the HUDF Region into the Deepest Field Ever
• Stars beyond Galaxies: The Origin of Extended Luminous Halos around Galaxies
• The large-scale structure of the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy Part I: global stellar density, morphology and metallicity properties
• ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Survey Description
• Structure and Morphologies of z~7-8 Galaxies from ultra-deep WFC3/IR Imaging of the HUDF
• Anti-Truncation of Disks in Early-Type Barred Galaxies
• The Outer Disks of Early-Type Galaxies. I. Surface-Brightness Profiles of Barred Galaxies
• Galaxy Morphologies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Dominance of Linear Structures at the Detection Limit
• Beyond 31 mag/arcsec^2: the low surface brightness frontier with the largest optical telescopes
• Noise Based Detection and Segmentation of Nebulous Objects
• The 2012 Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF12): Observational Overview
• ALMA spectroscopic survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Continuum number counts, resolved 1.2-mm extragalactic background, and properties of the faintest dusty star forming galaxies
• The ghost of a dwarf galaxy: fossils of the hierarchical formation of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 5907
• Cold Dark Matter Substructure and Galactic Disks II: Dynamical Effects of Hierarchical Satellite Accretion
• The XMM Deep survey in the CDFS I. First results on heavily obscured AGN
• VLA and ALMA Imaging of Intense, Galaxy-Wide Star Formation in z ~ 2 Galaxies
• Antitruncated Stellar Disks via Minor Mergers
• Discovery of a Giant Stellar Tidal Stream Around the Disk Galaxy NGC 4013
• Breaks in thin and thick discs of edge-on galaxies imaged in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)
• The influence of diffuse scattered light I. The PSF and its role to observations of the edge-on galaxy NGC 5907
• ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Search for [CII] line and dust emission in 6<z<8 galaxies
• The Outer Disks of Early-Type Galaxies. II. Surface-Brightness Profiles of Unbarred Galaxies and Trends with Hubble Type
• Ultradeep IRAC Imaging Over The HUDF And GOODS-South: Survey Design And Imaging Data Release
• On the formation of extended galactic disks by tidally disrupted dwarf galaxies
• UVUDF: Ultraviolet Imaging of the Hubble Ultradeep Field with Wide-field Camera 3
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. V. Antitruncated stellar discs resulting from major mergers
• The influence of diffuse scattered light II. Observations of galaxy haloes and thick discs and hosts of BCGs
• Systematic search for tidal features around nearby galaxies: I. Enhanced SDSS imaging of the Local Volume
• Color Profiles of Disk Galaxies since z~1: Probing Outer Disk Formation Scenarios
• An HST/ACS investigation of the spatial and chemical structure and sub-structure of NGC 891, a Milky Way analogue
• Cosmic Evolution of Stellar Disk Truncations: From z~1 to the Local Universe
• Evidence for the concurrent growth of thick discs and central mass concentrations from S${}^4$G imaging
• Detection of a distinct metal-poor stellar halo in the early-type galaxy NGC 3115
• Stellar haloes of disc galaxies at z~1
• How to bend galaxy disc profiles: the role of halo spin
• Structure and Population of the NGC55 Stellar Halo from a Subaru/Suprime-Cam Survey
• A Petal of the Sunflower: Photometry of the Stellar Tidal Stream in the Halo of Messier 63 (NGC 5055)
• The environmental dependence of the structure of galactic discs in STAGES S0 galaxies: implications for S0 formation
• How to bend galaxy disc profiles II: stars surfing the bar in Type-III discs
• Exponential Disks from Stellar Scattering: III. Stochastic Models
• Exponential profiles from stellar scattering off interstellar clumps and holes in dwarf galaxy discs
• Estimating Sky Level
• Evolution of the anti-truncated stellar profiles of S0 galaxies since $z=0.6$ in the SHARDS survey: I - Sample and Methods
• Near-exponential surface densities as hydrostatic, nonequilibrium profiles in galaxy discs
• Evolution of the anti-truncated stellar profiles of S0 galaxies since $z=0.6$ in the SHARDS survey: II - Structural and photometric evolution
• The Australian Space Eye: studying the history of galaxy formation with a CubeSat

Cited by in corpus (37)

• Dust attenuation, dust emission, and dust temperature in galaxies at z>=5: a view from the FIRE-2 simulations
• Galactic cirri in deep optical imaging
• The Formation of Isolated Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies in Romulus25
• A physically motivated definition for the size of galaxies in an era of ultra-deep imaging
• Preparing for low surface brightness science with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory: characterisation of tidal features from mock images
• The galaxy "missing dark matter" NGC1052-DF4 is undergoing tidal disruption
• Hidden depths in the local Universe: The Stellar Stream Legacy Survey
• The Growth of Intracluster Light in XCS-HSC Galaxy Clusters from $0.1<z<0.5$
• Euclid preparation: XVI. Exploring the ultra low-surface brightness Universe with Euclid/VIS
• Discovery of a Possible Splashback Feature in the Intracluster Light of MACS J1149.5+2223
• Deep Realistic Extragalactic Model (DREaM) Galaxy Catalogs: Predictions for a Roman Ultra-Deep Field
• Optimising and comparing source extraction tools using objective segmentation quality criteria
• A diffuse tidal dwarf galaxy destined to fade out as a "dark galaxy"
• What's in a name? Quantifying the interplay between the Definition, Orientation, and Shape of Ultra-diffuse Galaxies Using the Romulus Simulations
• Euclid: Early Release Observations -- Deep anatomy of nearby galaxies
• SKYSURF: Constraints on Zodiacal Light and Extragalactic Background Light through Panchromatic HST All-Sky Surface-Brightness Measurements: I. Survey Overview and Methods
• MCR-TRGB: A Multiwavelength-Covariant, Robust Tip of the Red Giant Branch Measurement Method
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Extended Intra-Group Light in a group at $z=0.2$ from deep Hyper-Suprime Cam images
• Intracluster Light Properties in a Fossil Cluster at z=0.47
• Dissecting the RELICS cluster SPT-CLJ0615-5746 through the intracluster light: confirmation of the multiple merging state of the cluster formation
• Properties of extragalactic thick discs recovered from ultra-deep Stripe82 imaging
• Strategies for optimal sky subtraction in the low surface brightness regime
• SKYSURF: Constraints on Zodiacal Light and Extragalactic Background Light through Panchromatic HST All-Sky Surface-Brightness Measurements: II. First Limits on Diffuse Light at 1.25, 1.4, and 1.6 microns
• Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies are missing in the observed Stellar Mass Function
• RELICS: ICL Analysis of the $z=0.566$ merging cluster WHL J013719.8-08284
• Joint Modelling of Dust Scattering and Thermal Emission: The Spider Complex
• The AMIGA sample of isolated galaxies. XIV. Disc breaks and interactions through ultra-deep optical imaging
• SKYSURF-4: Panchromatic HST All-Sky Surface-Brightness Measurement Methods and Results
• Structural analysis of massive galaxies using HST deep imaging at z < 0.5
• Euclid: Early Release Observations of diffuse stellar structures and globular clusters as probes of the mass assembly of galaxies in the Dorado group
• Towards a data-driven model of the sky from low Earth orbit as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope
• Low Surface Brightness structures from annotated deep CFHT images: effects of the host galaxy's properties and environment
• The truncation of the disk of NGC 4565: Detected up to z=4 kpc, with star formation, and affected by the warp
• Flares, Warps, Truncations, and Satellite: The Ultra-thin Galaxy UGC 11859
• The Intracluster Light of Abell 3667: Unveiling an Optical Bridge in LSST Precursor Data
• NASIM: Revealing the low surface brightness Universe from legacy VISTA data
• Analysis of Galactic cirrus filaments in HSC-SSP high-resolution deep images using artificial neural networks