Slicing Through Multicolor Space: Galaxy Redshifts From Broadband Photometry

Abstract

As a means of better understanding the evolution of optically selected galaxies we consider the distribution of galaxies within the multicolor space $U$, $B_J$, $R_F$ and $I_N$. We find that they form an almost planar distribution out to $B_J=22.5$ and $z<0.3$. The position of a galaxy within this plane is dependent on its redshift, luminosity and spectral type. While in the original $U$, $B_J$, $R_F$ and $I_N$ space these properties are highly correlated we can define an optimal rotation of the photometric axes that makes much of this information orthogonal. Fitting the observed spectroscopic redshifts with a quadratic function of the four magnitudes we show that redshifts for galaxies can be estimated to an accuracy better than $\hat{I}”z=0.05$. This dispersion is due to the photometric uncertainties within the photographic data. Assuming no galaxy evolution we derive a set of simulated galaxy fluxes in the U, J, F and N passbands. Using these data we investigate how the redshift is encoded within the broadband magnitudes and the intrinsic dispersion of the photometric-redshift relation. We find that the signal that defines a galaxy's photometric redshift is not related to specific absorption or emission lines but comes from the break in the overall shape of the galaxy continuum at around 4000 à . Using high signal-to-noise photometric data we estimate that it is possible to achieve an intrinsic dispersion of less than $\hat{I}”z=0.02$.

20 Pages, 6 figures; uuencoded, compressed, postscript files. Accepted for publication in AJ. Figure 1 (color JPEG file) and paper are available on http://tarkus.pha.jhu.edu/~ajc/