The 1.6um Bump as a Photometric Redshift Indicator

Abstract

I describe the principle of using the 1.6um H- spectral feature as a photometric redshift indicator and demonstrate that the technique holds promise by successfully recovering the redshifts of a small sample of z=0-1 galaxies using only their infrared (JHKL) photometry. I then consider the applicability of the technique to the 3.6--8um SIRTF filter set and investigate the systematic errors that could arise in photometric redshifts from random photometric errors or from a mismatch between target galaxies and fitting templates in metallicity, star formation history, and amount of interstellar dust. It appears that SIRTF near-IR data alone should be sufficient to estimate redshift of most galaxies that are at z>~1.5 and are dominated by stellar populations older than >~20Myr. Galaxies whose photometric fits indicate them to be at lower redshifts, z_fit<~1.5, or dominated by very young stellar populations, age_fit<~20Myr, suffer from severe degeneracies in photometric redshift, and a reliable photometric determination of their redshifts will have to include either IR observations at shorter wavelengths (H and K) or optical data. Overall, it appears that - with care and caveats - the 1.6um bump can provide a powerful way of estimating redshifts of distant galaxies in deep infrared imaging surveys that will soon be provided by SIRTF, and, eventually, by NGST.

AJ in press

References in corpus (5)

• The Rest Frame Optical Spectra of Lyman Break Galaxies: Star Formation, Extinction, Abundances, and Kinematics
• The Stellar Populations and Evolution of Lyman Break Galaxies
• The Rest-Frame Optical Properties of z~3 Galaxies
• A K-band Selected Photometric Redshift Catalog in the HDF-S: Sampling the Rest-Frame V-Band to z=3
• Galactic Chemical Abundances at z>3 I: First Results from the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager

Cited by in corpus (93)

• SWIRE: The SIRTF Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic Survey
• Spitzer view on the evolution of star-forming galaxies from z=0 to z~3
• Multiwavelength study of massive galaxies at z~2. II. Widespread Compton thick AGN and the concurrent growth of black holes and bulges
• The Evolving Luminosity Function of Red Galaxies
• Spitzer Observations of Massive Red Galaxies at High Redshift
• The GLASS James Webb Space Telescope Early Release Science Program. I. Survey Design and Release Plans
• A Spitzer-Selected Galaxy Cluster at z=1.62
• Target Selection and Validation of DESI Luminous Red Galaxies
• The Massive Hosts of Radio Galaxies Across Cosmic Time
• A Highly Complete Spectroscopic Survey of the GOODS-N Field
• HiZELS: a high redshift survey of H-alpha emitters. I: the cosmic star-formation rate and clustering at z=2.23
• Photometric Redshifts in the IRAC Shallow Survey
• The nature of star formation in distant ultraluminous infrared galaxies selected in a remarkably narrow redshift range
• Deep Extragalactic Surveys around the Ecliptic Poles with AKARI (ASTRO-F)
• Keck Deep Fields. II. The UV Galaxy Luminosity Function at z~4, 3, and 2
• SEDfit: Software for Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting of Photometric Data
• RUBIES: Evolved Stellar Populations with Extended Formation Histories at $z\sim 7-8$ in Candidate Massive Galaxies Identified with JWST/NIRSpec
• A Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Survey of K-selected Galaxies at z ~ 2.3: Comparison of Stellar Population Synthesis Codes and Constraints from the Rest-frame NIR
• AKARI IRC infrared 2.5-5 micron spectroscopy of a large sample of luminous infrared galaxies
• The Spitzer High Redshift Radio Galaxy Survey
• Discovery of a Rich Cluster at z = 1.63 using the Rest-Frame 1.6um "Stellar Bump Sequence" Method
• SPITZER Observations of the SCUBA/VLA Sources in the Lockman Hole: Star Formation History of Infrared-Luminous Galaxies
• The nature of faint Spitzer-selected dust-obscured galaxies
• The Taiwan ECDFS Near-Infrared Survey: Ultra-deep J and Ks Imaging in the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South
• A joint analysis of BLAST 250--500um and LABOCA 870um observations in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South
• The Angular Clustering of Distant Galaxy Clusters
• An AzTEC 1.1 mm survey of the GOODS-N field -- II. Multi-wavelength identifications and redshift distribution
• A Near-Infrared Analysis of the Submillimeter Background and the Cosmic Star-Formation History
• Ultradeep Ks Imaging in the GOODS-N
• MOIRCS Deep Survey. VI. Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of K-Selected Star-Forming Galaxies at z~2
• New light on gamma-ray burst host galaxies with Herschel
• The SCUBA HAlf Degree Extragalactic Survey (SHADES) -- I. Survey motivation, design and data processing
• RUBIES: JWST/NIRSpec Confirmation of an Infrared-luminous, Broad-line Little Red Dot with an Ionized Outflow
• Preliminary Target Selection for the DESI Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) Sample
• IRAC Imaging of Lockman Hole
• Eight-Dimensional Mid-Infrared/Optical Bayesian Quasar Selection
• Herschel reveals a T_dust-unbiased selection of z~2 ULIRGs
• Searching for massive galaxies at z>=3.5 in GOODS-North
• Accurate Spectral energy distributions and selection effects for high-redshift dusty galaxies: a new hot population to discover with the Spitzer Space Telescope?
• Star Formation Rates and Metallicities of K-selected Star Forming Galaxies at z~2
• The SCUBA Half-Degree Extragalactic Survey (SHADES) - VIII. The Nature of Faint Submm Galaxies in SHADES, SWIRE and SXDF Surveys
• Identification of luminous infrared galaxies at 1<z<2.5
• Wide-field mid-infrared and millimetre imaging of the high-redshift radio galaxy, 4C41.17
• Spitzer IRAC Infrared Colours of Submillimetre-bright Galaxies
• The properties of the host galaxy and the immediate environment of GRB 980425 / SN 1998bw from the multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution
• A Millimetre Survey of Starburst Dominated Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies at z~2
• Cosmology with dropout selection: Straw-man surveys and CMB lensing
• Stars, Dust, and the Growth of UV-Selected Sub-L* Galaxies at Redshift z~2
• AKARI IRC 2.5-5 um Spectroscopy of Infrared Galaxies over a Wide Luminosity Range
• The extremely red host galaxy of GRB 080207
• Spitzer Planck Herschel Infrared Cluster (SPHerIC) survey: Candidate galaxy clusters at 1.3 < z < 3 selected by high star-formation rate
• MAMBO 1.2mm observations of luminous starbursts at z~2 in the SWIRE fields
• Star Formation and AGN activity in Galaxies classified using the 1.6 μm Bump and PAH features at $z=0.4-2$
• Tracing the evolution of dust-obscured activity using sub-millimetre galaxy populations from STUDIES and AS2UDS
• Far-infrared characterization of an ultra-luminous starburst associated with a massively-accreting black hole at z=1.15
• The Near and Mid-infrared photometric properties of known redshift $z\ge 5$ Quasars
• Keck Deep Fields. I. Observations, Reductions, and the Selection of Faint Star-Forming Galaxies at Redshifts z~4, 3, and 2
• Extremely Red Objects in The Lockman Hole
• Candidate Clusters of Galaxies at $z>1.3$ Identified in the Spitzer SPT Deep Field Survey
• A large, deep 3 deg${}^2$ survey of H$\alpha$, [OIII], and [OII] emitters from LAGER: constraining luminosity functions
• Keck spectroscopy of z=1-3 ULIRGs from the Spitzer SWIRE survey
• Obscured and powerful AGN and starburst activities at z~3.5
• A census of galaxy constituents in a Coma Progenitor observed at z>3
• Using ALMA to resolve the nature of the early star-forming large-scale structure PLCK G073.4-57.5
• Infrared and X-Ray Evidence of an AGN in the NGC 3256 Southern Nucleus
• Using the 1.6um Bump to Study Rest-frame NIR Selected Galaxies at Redshift 2
• Searching for the highest redshift sources in 250-500 micron submillimeter surveys
• Galaxy populations in the most distant SPT-SZ clusters - I. Environmental quenching in massive clusters at $1.4\lesssim z\lesssim 1.7$
• The contribution of very massive high-redshift SWIRE galaxies to the stellar mass function
• Photometric redshift accuracy in AKARI Deep Surveys
• The ESO-Spitzer Imaging extragalactic Survey (ESIS) II: VIMOS I,z wide field imaging of ELAIS-S1 and selection of distant massive galaxies
• Far-Infrared Spectral Energy Distributions and Photometric Redshifts of Dusty Galaxies
• AKARI mid-infrared slitless spectroscopic survey of star-forming galaxies at $z\lesssim 0.5$
• Galaxy Clusters at 0.9<z<1.7 in the AKARI NEP deep field
• The Asymptotic Giant Branch and the Tip of the Red Giant Branch as Probes of Star Formation History: The Nearby Dwarf Irregular Galaxy KKH 98
• A Big Red Dot: Scattered light, host galaxy signatures and multi-phase gas flows in a luminous, heavily reddened quasar at cosmic noon
• The Bolocam 1.1 mm Lockman Hole Galaxy Survey: SHARC II 350 micron Photometry and Implications for Spectral Models, Dust Temperatures, and Redshift Estimation
• The First Weak-lensing Analysis with the James Webb Space Telescope: SMACS J0723.3-7327
• Dust-obscured star formation and the contribution of galaxies escaping UV/optical color selections at z~2
• The Spitzer-IRAC/MIPS Extragalactic survey (SIMES) in the South Ecliptic Pole field
• Designing Future Dark Energy Space Missions: II. Photometric Redshift of Space Weak Lensing Optimized Survey
• The high-redshift Universe with Spitzer
• PEARLS: Low Stellar Density Galaxies in the El Gordo Cluster Observed with JWST
• $Spitzer$-selected $z>1.3$ protocluster candidates in the LSST Deep Drilling Fields
• Improved photometric redshifts with colour-constrained galaxy templates for future wide-area surveys
• EROs found behind lensing clusters. II. Stellar populations and dust properties of optical dropout EROs and comparison with related objects
• Faint 6.7um Galaxies and their Contributions to the Stellar Mass Density in the Universe
• The 4MOST-Cosmology Redshift Survey: Target Selection of Bright Galaxies and Luminous Red Galaxies
• EROs found behind lensing clusters: II.Empirical properties, classification, and SED modelling based on multi-wavelength observations
• How Future Space-Based Weak Lensing Surveys Might Obtain Photometric Redshifts Independently
• A tight relation between the distribution of globular clusters and dark matter in AS1063
• The X-ray statistical properties of dust-obscured galaxies detected by eROSITA
• Photometric Selection of a Massive Galaxy Catalog with $z\ge 0.55$