The Target-selection Pipeline for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

Abstract

In 2021 May, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) began a 5 yr survey of approximately 50 million total extragalactic and Galactic targets. The primary DESI dark-time targets are emission line galaxies (ELGs), luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and quasars (QSOs). In bright time, DESI will focus on two surveys known as the Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS) and the Milky Way Survey (MWS). DESI also observes a selection of "secondary" targets for bespoke science goals. This paper gives an overview of the publicly available pipeline (desitarget) used to process targets for DESI observations. Highlights include details of the different DESI survey targeting phases, the targeting ID (TARGETID) used to define unique targets, the bitmasks used to indicate a particular type of target, the data model and structure of DESI targeting files, and examples of how to access and use the desitarget code base. This paper will also describe "supporting" DESI target classes, such as standard stars, sky locations, and random catalogs that mimic the angular selection function of DESI targets. The DESI target selection pipeline is complex and sizable; this paper attempts to summarize the most salient information required to understand and work with DESI targeting data.

AJ, accepted, 27 pages, 4 figures, 10 tables, one of a suite of 8 papers detailing targeting for DESI. Minor textual updates to better match the final, accepted version. Also added two missing co-authors

References in corpus (8)

• Array Programming with NumPy
• Overview of the Instrumentation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• The DESI Experiment Part II: Instrument Design
• Think Outside the Color Box: Probabilistic Target Selection and the SDSS-XDQSO Quasar Targeting Catalog
• The Robotic Multi-Object Focal Plane System of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)
• Angular clustering properties of the DESI QSO target selection using DR9 Legacy Imaging Surveys
• Performance of Kitt Peak's Mayall 4-meter Telescope During DESI Commissioning
• Testing the 10 spectrograph units for DESI: approach and results

Cited by in corpus (63)

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• DESI 2024 III: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Galaxies and Quasars
• DESI Bright Galaxy Survey: Final Target Selection, Design, and Validation
• DESI 2024 IV: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from the Lyman Alpha Forest
• The Spectroscopic Data Processing Pipeline for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Target Selection and Validation of DESI Quasars
• DESI 2024 VII: Cosmological Constraints from the Full-Shape Modeling of Clustering Measurements
• Target Selection and Validation of DESI Emission Line Galaxies
• Overview of the DESI Milky Way Survey
• The DESI Survey Validation: Results from Visual Inspection of the Quasar Survey Spectra
• DESI 2024 II: Sample Definitions, Characteristics, and Two-point Clustering Statistics
• DESI 2024 V: Full-Shape Galaxy Clustering from Galaxies and Quasars
• DESI luminous red galaxy samples for cross-correlations
• Performance of the Quasar Spectral Templates for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• DESI Observations of the Andromeda Galaxy: Revealing the Immigration History of our Nearest Neighbor
• The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument: One-dimensional power spectrum from first Lyman-$\alpha$ forest samples with Fast Fourier Transform
• Modified Gravity Constraints from the Full Shape Modeling of Clustering Measurements from DESI 2024
• First Detection of the BAO Signal from Early DESI Data
• DESI z >~ 5 Quasar Survey. I. A First Sample of 400 New Quasars at z ~ 4.7-6.6
• Constraining primordial non-Gaussianity from DESI quasar targets and Planck CMB lensing
• Local primordial non-Gaussianity from the large-scale clustering of photometric DESI luminous red galaxies
• Value Added Catalog of physical properties of more than 1.3 million galaxies from the DESI Survey
• DESI Early Data Release Milky Way Survey Value-Added Catalogue
• Archetype-Based Redshift Estimation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Survey
• DESI Peculiar Velocity Survey -- Fundamental Plane
• Detecting and Characterizing Mg II absorption in DESI Survey Validation Quasar Spectra
• Cosmological constraints from the cross-correlation of DESI Luminous Red Galaxies with CMB lensing from Planck PR4 and ACT DR6
• Host Dark Matter Halos of WISE-selected Obscured & Unobscured Quasars: Evidence for Evolution
• Measuring ${\sigma }_8$ using DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys Emission-Line Galaxies and Planck CMB Lensing and the Impact of Dust on Parameter Inference
• ELG Spectroscopic Systematics Analysis of the DESI Data Release 1
• The most distant HI galaxies discovered by the 500 m dish FAST
• Positive neutrino masses with DESI DR2 via matter conversion to dark energy
• DESI Complete Calibration of the Color-Redshift Relation (DC3R2): Results from early DESI data
• The DESI One-Percent Survey: Modelling the clustering and halo occupation of all four DESI tracers with Uchuu
• The CluMPR Galaxy Cluster-Finding Algorithm and DESI Legacy Survey Galaxy Cluster Catalogue
• A Spectroscopic Search for Optical Emission Lines from Dark Matter Decay
• Model-Independent Measurement of the Matter-Radiation Equality Scale in DESI 2024
• PAC in DESI. I. Galaxy Stellar Mass Function into the $10^6{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ Frontier
• DESI Massive Post-Starburst Galaxies at $\mathbf{z}\sim 1.2$ have compact structures and dense cores
• Nearby stellar substructures in the Galactic halo from DESI Milky Way Survey Year 1 Data Release
• Cross-correlation between soft X-rays and galaxies A new benchmark for galaxy evolution models
• DESI Mock Challenge: Constructing DESI galaxy catalogues based on FastPM simulations
• The Compilation and Validation of the Spectroscopic Redshift Catalogs for the DESI-COSMOS and DESI-XMMLSS Fields
• AuriDESI: Mock Catalogues for the DESI Milky Way Survey
• The VST ATLAS Quasar Survey I: Catalogue
• Doppler bias: impact of peculiar velocities on color selection and the large scale structure of galaxy surveys
• Model independent variance cancellation in CMB lensing cross-correlations
• Constraining primordial non-Gaussianity from the large scale structure two-point and three-point correlation functions
• Using Elliptical Galaxy Kinematics to Compare of the Strength of Gravity in Cosmological Regions of Differing Gravitational Potential -- A First Look
• DESI Emission-line Galaxies: Clustering Dependence on Stellar Mass and [OII] Luminosity
• 3D Correlations in the Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest from Early DESI Data
• Inference of matter power spectrum at z=0 using DESI DR1 Full-Shape data
• Reconstructing redshift distributions with photometric galaxy clustering
• Toward accurate measurement of property-dependent galaxy clustering: II. Tests of the smoothed density-corrected $V_{\max }$ method
• Confirming HSC strong lens candidates with DESI Spectroscopy. I. Project overview and first results
• Clustering analysis of medium-band selected high-redshift galaxies
• Parity-odd Four-Point Correlation Function from DESI Data Release 1 Luminous Red Galaxy Sample
• Identifying Anomalous DESI Galaxy Spectra with a Variational Autoencoder
• ELUCID-DESI I: A Parallel MPI Implementation of the Initial Condition Solver for Large-Scale Reconstruction Simulations
• Searching for Type Ia Supernovae in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Revisiting the equation of state of dark energy from DESI BAO with SNe Ia and CMB