Person:
Eisenstein, Daniel

Loading...
Profile Picture

Email Address

AA Acceptance Date

Birth Date

Research Projects

Organizational Units

Job Title

Last Name

Eisenstein

First Name

Daniel

Name

Eisenstein, Daniel

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 16
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Modelling galactic conformity with the colour–halo age relation in the Illustris simulation
    (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2015) Bray, Aaron; Pillepich, Annalisa; Sales, Laura V.; Zhu, Emily; Genel, Shy; Rodriguez-Gomez, Vicente; Torrey, P; Nelson, Dylan; Vogelsberger, Mark; Springel, Volker; Eisenstein, Daniel; Hernquist, Lars
    Comparisons between observational surveys and galaxy formation models find that dark matter haloes’ mass can largely explain their galaxies’ stellar mass. However, it remains uncertain whether additional environmental variables, known as assembly bias, are necessary to explain other galaxy properties. We use the Illustris simulation to investigate the role of assembly bias in producing galactic conformity by considering 18 000 galaxies with Mstellar > 2 × 109 M⊙. We find a significant signal of galactic conformity: out to distances of about 10 Mpc, the mean red fraction of galaxies around redder galaxies is higher than around bluer galaxies at fixed stellar mass. Dark matter haloes exhibit an analogous conformity signal, in which the fraction of haloes formed at earlier times (old haloes) is higher around old haloes than around younger ones at fixed halo mass. A plausible interpretation of galactic conformity is the combination of the halo conformity signal with the galaxy colour–halo age relation: at fixed stellar mass, particularly towards the low-mass end, Illustris’ galaxy colours correlate with halo age, with the reddest galaxies (often satellites) preferentially found in the oldest haloes. We explain the galactic conformity effect with a simple semi-empirical model, assigning stellar mass via halo mass (abundance matching) and galaxy colour via halo age (age matching). Regarding comparison to observations, we conclude that the adopted selection/isolation criteria, projection effects, and stacking techniques can have a significant impact on the measured amplitude of the conformity signal.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Cosmological constraints from the SDSS luminous red galaxies
    (American Physical Society (APS), 2006) Tegmark, Max; Eisenstein, Daniel; Strauss, Michael A.; Weinberg, David H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Fukugita, Masataka; Gunn, James E.; Hamilton, Andrew J. S.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Percival, Will J.; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Scoccimarro, Roman; Seljak, Uros; Seo, Hee-Jong; Swanson, Molly; Szalay, Alexander S.; Vogeley, Michael S.; Yoo, Jaiyul; Zehavi, Idit; Abazajian, Kevork; Anderson, Scott F.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Bassett, Bruce; Berlind, Andreas; Brinkmann, Jon; Budavari, Tamás; Castander, Francisco; Connolly, Andrew; Csabai, Istvan; Doi, Mamoru; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Gillespie, Bruce; Glazebrook, Karl; Hennessy, Gregory S.; Hogg, David W.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Jain, Bhuvnesh; Johnston, David; Kent, Stephen; Lamb, Donald Q.; Lee, Brian C.; Lin, Huan; Loveday, Jon; Lupton, Robert H.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Pan, Kaike; Park, Changbom; Peoples, John; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Pope, Adrian; Richmond, Michael; Rockosi, Constance; Scranton, Ryan; Sheth, Ravi K.; Stebbins, Albert; Stoughton, Christopher; Szapudi, István; Tucker, Douglas L.; Berk, Daniel E. Vanden; Yanny, Brian; York, Donald G.
    We measure the large-scale real-space power spectrum P(k) using luminous red galaxies (LRGs) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and use this measurement to sharpen constraints on cosmological parameters from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). We employ a matrix-based power spectrum estimation method using Pseudo-Karhunen-Loeve eigenmodes, producing uncorrelated minimum-variance measurements in 20 k-bands of both the clustering power and its anisotropy due to redshift-space distortions, with narrow and well-behaved window functions in the range 0.01h/Mpc < k < 0.2h/Mpc. Results from the LRG and main galaxy samples are consistent, with the former providing higher signal-to-noise. Our results are robust to omitting angular and radial density fluctuations and are consistent between different parts of the sky. They provide a striking confirmation of the predicted large-scale LCDM power spectrum. Combining only SDSS LRG and WMAP data places robust constraints on many cosmological parameters that complement prior analyses of multiple data sets. The LRGs provide independent cross-checks on Om and the baryon fraction in good agreement with WMAP. Within the context of flat LCDM models, our LRG measurements complement WMAP by sharpening the constraints on the matter density, the neutrino density and the tensor amplitude by about a factor of two, giving Omega_m=0.24+-0.02 (1 sigma), sum m_nu < 0.9 eV (95%) and r<0.3 (95%). Baryon oscillations are clearly detected and provide a robust measurement of the comoving distance to the median survey redshift z=0.35 independent of curvature and dark energy properties. Within the LCDM framework, our power spectrum measurement improves the evidence for spatial flatness, sharpening the curvature constraint Omega_tot=1.05+-0.05 from WMAP alone to Omega_tot=1.003+-0.010. Assuming Omega_tot=1, the equation of state parameter is constrained to w=-0.94+-0.09, indicating the potential for more ambitious future LRG measurements to provide precision tests of the nature of dark energy. All these constraints are essentially independent of scales k>0.1h/Mpc and associated nonlinear complications, yet agree well with more aggressive published analyses where nonlinear modeling is crucial.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP
    (American Physical Society (APS), 2004) Tegmark, Max; Strauss, Michael A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Abazajian, Kevork; Dodelson, Scott; Sandvik, Havard; Wang, Xiaomin; Weinberg, David H.; Zehavi, Idit; Bahcall, Neta A.; Hoyle, Fiona; Schlegel, David; Scoccimarro, Roman; Vogeley, Michael S.; Berlind, Andreas; Budavari, Tamás; Connolly, Andrew; Eisenstein, Daniel; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Frieman, Joshua A.; Gunn, James E.; Hui, Lam; Jain, Bhuvnesh; Johnston, David; Kent, Stephen; Lin, Huan; Nakajima, Reiko; Nichol, Robert C.; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Pope, Adrian; Scranton, Ryan; Seljak, Uroš; Sheth, Ravi K.; Stebbins, Albert; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, István; Xu, Yongzhong; Annis, James; Brinkmann, J.; Burles, Scott; Castander, Francisco J.; Csabai, Istvan; Loveday, Jon; Doi, Mamoru; Fukugita, Masataka; Gillespie, Bruce; Hennessy, Greg; Hogg, David W.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Knapp, Gillian R.; Lamb, Don Q.; Lee, Brian C.; Lupton, Robert H.; McKay, Timothy A.; Kunszt, Peter; Munn, Jeffrey A.; O’Connell, Liam; Peoples, John; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Richmond, Michael; Rockosi, Constance; Schneider, Donald P.; Stoughton, Christopher; Tucker, Douglas L.; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Yanny, Brian; York, Donald G.
    We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum P(k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a ``vanilla'' flat adiabatic Lambda-CDM model without tilt (n=1), running tilt, tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1 sigma constraints on the Hubble parameter from h~0.74+0.18-0.07 to h~0.70+0.04-0.03, on the matter density from Omega_m~0.25+/-0.10 to Omega_m~0.30+/-0.04 (1 sigma) and on neutrino masses from <11 eV to <0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the measured age of the Universe tightens from t0~16.3+2.3-1.8 Gyr to t0~14.1+1.0-0.9 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    The Sixth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    (IOP Publishing, 2008) Adelman‐McCarthy, Jennifer K.; Agüeros, Marcel A.; Allam, Sahar S.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Anderson, Kurt S.J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Bailer‐Jones, C. A. L.; Baldry, Ivan K.; Barentine, J. C.; Bassett, Bruce A.; Becker, Andrew C.; Beers, Timothy C.; Bell, Eric F.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Bernardi, Mariangela; Blanton, Michael R.; Bochanski, John J.; Boroski, William N.; Brinchmann, Jarle; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert J.; Budavári, Tamás; Carliles, Samuel; Carr, Michael A.; Castander, Francisco J.; Cinabro, David; Cool, R. J.; Covey, Kevin R.; Csabai, István; Cunha, Carlos E.; Davenport, James R. A.; Dilday, Ben; Doi, Mamoru; Eisenstein, Daniel; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Friedman, Scott D.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Fukugita, Masataka; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Gates, Evalyn; Gillespie, Bruce; Glazebrook, Karl; Gray, Jim; Grebel, Eva K.; Gunn, James E.; Gurbani, Vijay K.; Hall, Patrick B.; Harding, Paul; Harvanek, Michael; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hayes, Jeffrey; Heckman, Timothy M.; Hendry, John S.; Hindsley, Robert B.; Hirata, Christopher M.; Hogan, Craig J.; Hogg, David W.; Hyde, Joseph B.; Ichikawa, Shin‐ichi; Ivezi?, ?eljko; Jester, Sebastian; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jorgensen, Anders M.; Juric, Mario; Kent, Stephen M.; Kessler, R.; Kleinman, S. J.; Knapp, G. R.; Kron, Richard G.; Krzesinski, Jurek; Kuropatkin, Nikolay; Lamb, Donald Q.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Lebedeva, Svetlana; Lee, Young Sun; Leger, R. French; Lépine, Sébastien; Lima, Marcos; Lin, Huan; Long, Daniel C.; Loomis, Craig P.; Loveday, Jon; Lupton, Robert H.; Malanushenko, Olena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Mandelbaum, Rachel; Margon, Bruce; Marriner, John P.; Martínez‐Delgado, David; Matsubara, Takahiko; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McKay, Timothy A.; Meiksin, Avery; Morrison, Heather L.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Nakajima, Reiko; Neilsen, Eric H. Jr.; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Nichol, Robert C.; Nicinski, Tom; Nieto‐Santisteban, Maria; Nitta, Atsuko; Okamura, Sadanori; Owen, Russell; Oyaizu, Hiroaki; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Pan, Kaike; Park, Changbom; Peoples, Jr., John; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Pope, Adrian C.; Purger, Norbert; Raddick, M. Jordan; Re Fiorentin, Paola; Richards, Gordon T.; Richmond, Michael W.; Riess, Adam G.; Rix, Hans‐Walter; Rockosi, Constance M.; Sako, Masao; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schreiber, Matthias R.; Schwope, Axel D.; Seljak, Uros; Sesar, Branimir; Sheldon, Erin; Shimasaku, Kazu; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Smith, J. Allyn; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Steinmetz, Matthias; Strauss, Michael A.; SubbaRao, Mark; Suto, Yasushi; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, István; Szkody, Paula; Tegmark, Max; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Tremonti, Christy A.; Tucker, Douglas L.; Uomoto, Alan; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Vandenberg, Jan; Vidrih, S.; Vogeley, Michael S.; Voges, Wolfgang; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wadadekar, Yogesh; Weinberg, David H.; West, Andrew A.; White, Simon D. M.; Wilhite, Brian C.; Yanny, Brian; Yocum, D. R.; York, Donald G.; Zehavi, Idit; Zucker, Daniel B.
    This paper describes the Sixth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. With this data release, the imaging of the northern Galactic cap is now complete. The survey contains images and parameters of roughly 287 million objects over 9583 deg2, including scans over a large range of Galactic latitudes and longitudes. The survey also includes 1.27 million spectra of stars, galaxies, quasars, and blank sky (for sky subtraction) selected over 7425 deg2. This release includes much more stellar spectroscopy than was available in previous data releases and also includes detailed estimates of stellar temperatures, gravities, and metallicities. The results of improved photometric calibration are now available, with uncertainties of roughly 1% in g, r, i, and z, and 2% in u, substantially better than the uncertainties in previous data releases. The spectra in this data release have improved wavelength and flux calibration, especially in the extreme blue and extreme red, leading to the qualitatively better determination of stellar types and radial velocities. The spectrophotometric fluxes are now tied to point-spread function magnitudes of stars rather than fiber magnitudes. This gives more robust results in the presence of seeing variations, but also implies a change in the spectrophotometric scale, which is now brighter by roughly 0.35 mag. Systematic errors in the velocity dispersions of galaxies have been fixed, and the results of two independent codes for determining spectral classifications and redshifts are made available. Additional spectral outputs are made available, including calibrated spectra from individual 15 minute exposures and the sky spectrum subtracted from each exposure. We also quantify a recently recognized underestimation of the brightnesses of galaxies of large angular extent due to poor sky subtraction; the bias can exceed 0.2 mag for galaxies brighter than r = 14 mag.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Average Spectra of Massive Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    (IOP Publishing, 2003) Eisenstein, Daniel; Hogg, David W.; Fukugita, Masataka; Nakamura, Osamu; Bernardi, Mariangela; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Schlegel, David J.; Brinkmann, J.; Connolly, Andrew J.; Csabai, Istvan; Gunn, James E.; Ivezi?, ?eljko; Lamb, Don Q.; Loveday, Jon; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Schneider, Donald P.; Strauss, Michael A.; Szalay, Alex; York, Don G.
    We combine Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra of 22,000 luminous, red, bulge-dominated galaxies to get high signal-to-noise ratio average spectra in the rest-frame optical and ultraviolet (2600-7000 Å). The average spectra of these massive, quiescent galaxies are early type with weak emission lines and with absorption lines indicating an apparent excess of α-elements over solar abundance ratios. We make average spectra of subsamples selected by luminosity, environment, and redshift. The average spectra are remarkable in their similarity. What variations do exist in the average spectra as a function of luminosity and environment are found to form a nearly one-parameter family in spectrum space. We present a high signal-to-noise ratio spectrum of the variation. We measure the properties of the variation with a modified version of the Lick index system and compare to model spectra from stellar population syntheses. The variation may be a combination of age and chemical abundance differences, but the conservative conclusion is that the quality of the data considerably exceeds the current state of the models.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    The Velocity Dispersion Function of Early‐Type Galaxies
    (IOP Publishing, 2003) Sheth, Ravi; Bernardi, Mariangela; Schechter, Paul; Burles, Scott; Eisenstein, Daniel; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Frieman, Joshua; Lupton, Robert; Schlegel, David; Subbarao, Mark; Shimasaku, K.; Bahcall, Neta; Brinkmann, J.; Ivezić, Željko
    The distribution of early-type galaxy velocity dispersions, phgr(σ), is measured using a sample drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database. Its shape differs significantly from that obtained by simply using the mean correlation between luminosity L and velocity dispersion σ to transform the luminosity function into a velocity function: ignoring the scatter around the mean σ-L relation is a bad approximation. An estimate of the contribution from late-type galaxies is also made, which suggests that phgr(σ) is dominated by early-type galaxies at velocities larger than ~200 km s-1.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    The Three‐Dimensional Power Spectrum of Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    (IOP Publishing, 2004) Tegmark, Max; Blanton, Michael; Strauss, Michael; Hoyle, Fiona; Schlegel, David; Scoccimarro, Roman; Vogeley, Michael; Weinberg, David; Zehavi, Idit; Berlind, Andreas; Budavari, Tamás; Connolly, Andrew; Eisenstein, Daniel; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Frieman, Joshua; Gunn, James; Hamilton, Andrew; Hui, Lam; Jain, Bhuvnesh; Johnston, David; Kent, Stephen; Lin, Huan; Nakajima, Reiko; Nichol, Robert; Ostriker, Jeremiah; Pope, Adrian; Scranton, Ryan; Seljak, Uroš; Sheth, Ravi; Stebbins, Albert; Szalay, Alexander; Szapudi, István; Verde, Licia; Xu, Yongzhong; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta; Brinkmann, J.; Burles, Scott; Castander, Francisco; Csabai, Istvan; Loveday, Jon; Doi, Mamoru; Fukugita, Masataka; Gott, J.; Hennessy, Greg; Hogg, David; Ivezić, Željko; Knapp, Gillian; Lamb, Don; Lee, Brian; Lupton, Robert; McKay, Timothy; Kunszt, Peter; Munn, Jeffrey; O'Connell, Liam; Peoples, John; Pier, Jeffrey; Richmond, Michael; Rockosi, Constance; Schneider, Donald; Stoughton, Christopher; Tucker, Douglas; Berk, Daniel; Yanny, Brian; York, Donald
    We measure the large-scale real-space power spectrum P(k) by using a sample of 205,443 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, covering 2417 effective square degrees with mean redshift z ≈ 0.1. We employ a matrix-based method using pseudo-Karhunen-Loève eigenmodes, producing uncorrelated minimum-variance measurements in 22 k-bands of both the clustering power and its anisotropy due to redshift-space distortions, with narrow and well-behaved window functions in the range 0.02 h Mpc-1 < k < 0.3 h Mpc-1. We pay particular attention to modeling, quantifying, and correcting for potential systematic errors, nonlinear redshift distortions, and the artificial red-tilt caused by luminosity-dependent bias. Our results are robust to omitting angular and radial density fluctuations and are consistent between different parts of the sky. Our final result is a measurement of the real-space matter power spectrum P(k) up to an unknown overall multiplicative bias factor. Our calculations suggest that this bias factor is independent of scale to better than a few percent for k < 0.1 h Mpc-1, thereby making our results useful for precision measurements of cosmological parameters in conjunction with data from other experiments such as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite. The power spectrum is not well-characterized by a single power law but unambiguously shows curvature. As a simple characterization of the data, our measurements are well fitted by a flat scale-invariant adiabatic cosmological model with h Ωm = 0.213 ± 0.023 and σ8 = 0.89 ± 0.02 for L* galaxies, when fixing the baryon fraction Ωb/Ωm = 0.17 and the Hubble parameter h = 0.72; cosmological interpretation is given in a companion paper.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    The Second Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    (IOP Publishing, 2004) Abazajian, Kevork; Adelman-McCarthy, Jennifer K.; Agüeros, Marcel A.; Allam, Sahar S.; Anderson, Kurt, S. J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Baldry, Ivan K.; Bastian, Steven; Berlind, Andreas; Bernardi, Mariangela; Blanton, Michael R.; Bochanski, John J. Jr.; Boroski, William N.; Briggs, John W.; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert J.; Budavári, Tamás; Carey, Larry N.; Carliles, Samuel; Castander, Francisco J.; Connolly, A. J.; Csabai, István; Doi, Mamoru; Dong, Feng; Eisenstein, Daniel; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Friedman, Scott D.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Fukugita, Masataka; Gal, Roy R.; Gillespie, Bruce; Glazebrook, Karl; Gray, Jim; Grebel, Eva K.; Gunn, James E.; Gurbani, Vijay K.; Hall, Patrick B.; Hamabe, Masaru; Harris, Frederick H.; Harris, Hugh C.; Harvanek, Michael; Heckman, Timothy M.; Hendry, John S.; Hennessy, Gregory S.; Hindsley, Robert B.; Hogan, Craig J.; Hogg, David W.; Holmgren, Donald J.; Ichikawa, Shin-ichi; Ichikawa, Takashi; Ivezic, Zeljko; Jester, Sebastian; Johnston, David E.; Jorgensen, Anders M.; Kent, Stephen M.; Kleinman, S. J.; Knapp, G. R.; Kniazev, Alexei Yu.; Kron, Richard G.; Krzesinski, Jurek; Kunszt, Peter Z.; Kuropatkin, Nickolai; Lamb, Donald Q.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Lee, Brian C.; Leger, R. French; Li, Nolan; Lin, Huan; Loh, Yeong-Shang; Long, Daniel C.; Loveday, Jon; Lupton, Robert H.; Malik, Tanu; Margon, Bruce; Matsubara, Takahiko; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McKay, Timothy A.; Meiksin, Avery; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Nakajima, Reiko; Nash, Thomas; Neilsen, Eric H. Jr.; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Newman, Peter R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nicinski, Tom; Nieto-Santisteban, Maria; Nitta, Atsuko; Okamura, Sadanori; O, William; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Owen, Russell; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Peoples, John; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Pope, Adrian C.; Quinn, Thomas R.; Richards, Gordon T.; Richmond, Michael W.; Rix, Hans-Walter; Rockosi, Constance M.; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Scranton, Ryan; Sekiguchi, Maki; Seljak, Uros; Sergey, Gary; Sesar, Branimir; Sheldon, Erin; Shimasaku, Kazu; Siegmund, Walter A.; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Smith, J. Allyn; Smolčić, Vernesa; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Stebbins, Albert; Stoughton, Chris; Strauss, Michael A.; SubbaRao, Mark; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, István; Szkody, Paula; Szokoly, Gyula P.; Tegmark, Max; Teodoro, Luis; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Tremonti, Christy; Tucker, Douglas L.; Uomoto, Alan; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Vandenberg, Jan; Vogeley, Michael S.; Voges, Wolfgang; Vogt, Nicole P.; Walkowicz, Lucianne M.; Wang, Shu-i; Weinberg, David H.; West, Andrew A.; White, Simon D. M.; Wilhite, Brian C.; Xu, Yongzhong; Yanny, Brian; Yasuda, Naoki; Yip, Ching-Wa; Yocum, D. R.; York, Donald G.; Zehavi, Idit; Zibetti, Stefano; Zucker, Daniel B.
    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has validated and made publicly available its Second Data Release. This data release consists of 3324 deg2 of five-band (ugriz) imaging data with photometry for over 88 million unique objects, 367,360 spectra of galaxies, quasars, stars, and calibrating blank sky patches selected over 2627 deg2 of this area, and tables of measured parameters from these data. The imaging data reach a depth of r ≈ 22.2 (95% completeness limit for point sources) and are photometrically and astrometrically calibrated to 2% rms and 100 mas rms per coordinate, respectively. The imaging data have all been processed through a new version of the SDSS imaging pipeline, in which the most important improvement since the last data release is fixing an error in the model fits to each object. The result is that model magnitudes are now a good proxy for point-spread function magnitudes for point sources, and Petrosian magnitudes for extended sources. The spectroscopy extends from 3800 to 9200 Å at a resolution of 2000. The spectroscopic software now repairs a systematic error in the radial velocities of certain types of stars and has substantially improved spectrophotometry. All data included in the SDSS Early Data Release and First Data Release are reprocessed with the improved pipelines and included in the Second Data Release. Further characteristics of the data are described, as are the data products themselves and the tools for accessing them.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Early-Type Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. The Sample
    (2003) Bernardi, Mariangela; Sheth, Ravi; Annis, James; Burles, Scott; Eisenstein, Daniel; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Hogg, David; Lupton, Robert; Schlegel, David; SubbaRao, Mark; Bahcall, Neta; Blakeslee, John; Brinkmann, J.; Castander, Francisco; Connolly, Andrew; Csabai, István; Doi, Mamoru; Fukugita, Masataka; Frieman, Joshua; Heckman, Timothy; Hennessy, Gregory; Ivezić, Željko; Knapp, G.; Lamb, Don; McKay, Timothy; Munn, Jeffrey; Nichol, Robert; Okamura, Sadanori; Schneider, Donald; Thakar, Aniruddha; York, Donald
    A sample of nearly 9000 early-type galaxies, in the redshift range 0.01 ≤ z ≤ 0.3, was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using morphological and spectral criteria. This paper describes how the sample was selected, presents examples of images and seeing-corrected fits to the observed surface brightness profiles, describes our method for estimating K-corrections, and shows that the SDSS spectra are of sufficiently high quality to measure velocity dispersions accurately. It also provides catalogs of the measured photometric and spectroscopic parameters. In related papers, these data are used to study how early-type galaxy observables, including luminosity, effective radius, surface brightness, color, and velocity dispersion, are correlated with one another.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Early-type Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. II. Correlations between Observables
    (IOP Publishing, 2003) Bernardi, Mariangela; Sheth, Ravi K.; Annis, James; Burles, Scott; Eisenstein, Daniel; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Hogg, David W.; Lupton, Robert H.; Schlegel, David J.; SubbaRao, Mark; Bahcall, Neta A.; Blakeslee, John P.; Brinkmann, J.; Castander, Francisco J.; Connolly, Andrew J.; Csabai, István; Doi, Mamoru; Fukugita, Masataka; Frieman, Joshua; Heckman, Timothy; Hennessy, Gregory S.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Knapp, G. R.; Lamb, Don Q.; McKay, Timothy; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert; Okamura, Sadanori; Schneider, Donald P.; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; York, Donald G.
    A magnitude-limited sample of nearly 9000 early-type galaxies, in the redshift range 0.01 ≤ z ≤ 0.3, was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using morphological and spectral criteria. The sample was used to study how early-type galaxy observables, including luminosity L, effective radius Ro, surface brightness Io, color, and velocity dispersion σ, are correlated with one another. Measurement biases are understood with mock catalogs that reproduce all of the observed scaling relations and their dependences on fitting technique. At any given redshift, the intrinsic distribution of luminosities, sizes, and velocity dispersions in our sample are all approximately Gaussian. A maximum likelihood analysis shows that σ ∝ L0.25±0.012, Ro ∝ L0.63±0.025, and Ro ∝ I-0.75±0.02 in the r* band. In addition, the mass-to-light ratio within the effective radius scales as Mo/L ∝ L0.14±0.02 or Mo/L ∝ M, and galaxies with larger effective masses have smaller effective densities: Δo ∝ M. These relations are approximately the same in the g*, i*, and z* bands. Relative to the population at the median redshift in the sample, galaxies at lower and higher redshifts have evolved only little, with more evolution in the bluer bands. The luminosity function is consistent with weak passive luminosity evolution and a formation time of about 9 Gyr ago.