The Effectiveness of Mid IR / Far IR Blind, Wide Area, Spectral Surveys in Breaking the Confusion Limit

摘要

Sourceconfusiondefinesapracticaldepthtowhichtotakelarge-areaextragalacticsurveys.3Dimagingspectrometerswithpositionalaswellasspectralinformation,however,potentiallyprovideameansbywhichtouselineemissiontobreakthetraditionalconfusionlimit.Inthispaperwepresenttheresultsofourinvestigationintotheeffectivenessofmid/farinfrared,wide-areaspectroscopicsurveysinbreakingtheconfusionlimit.WeuseSAFARI,aFIRimagingFourierTransformSpectrometerconceptfortheproposedJAXA-ledSPICAmission,asatestcase.Wegenerateartificialskiesrepresentativeof100SAFARIfootprintsanduseafully-automatedredshiftdeterminationmethodtoretrieveredshiftsforbothspatiallyandspectrallyconfusedsourcesforbright-endandburstmodegalaxyevolutionmodels.Wefindweareabletoretrieveaccurateredshiftsfor38/54%ofthebrightestspectrallyconfusedsources,withcontinuumfluxesasmuchasanorderofmagnitudebelowthe120$$mu$$mphotometricconfusionlimit.Inadditionwealsorecoveraccurateredshiftsfor38/29%ofthesecondbrightestspectrallyconfusedsources.Ourresultssuggestthatdeep,spectrallinesurveyswithSAFARIcanbreakthetraditionalphotometricconfusionlimit,andwillalsonotonlyresolve,butprovideredshiftsfor,alargenumberofpreviouslyinaccessiblegalaxies.Toconcludewediscusssomeofthelimitationsofthetechnique,aswellasfurtherwork.