Following a successful two week long engineering run at the JCMT in July 2005, the AzTEC camera conducted a two-month long series of 1100um surveys of blank and mass-biased regions of the sky. A total of 16 AzTEC visiting instrument programs were approved by the JCMT time allocation groups, and these AzTEC observations were scheduled for the months of November and December 2005. The SMG surveys, described below, utilized about 350 hours of telescope time at the JCMT and nearly quadrupled all previous surveys at mm/sub-mm surveys in depth-weighted area
AzTEC/SHADES (P.I. J.Dunlop)
The AzTEC/SHADES survey is the AzTEC analog to the SCUBA Half Degree
Extragalactic Survey (see Coppin et al. 2006 and references therein),
a large-area SMG survey which was slightly less than half-complete
when the SCUBA instrument was decommissioned in 2005. With AzTEC we
managed to complete the survey, including re-imaging the pair of SCUBA
fields (one centered on the Lockman Hole and the other centered on the
Subaru Deep Field South). As a result, we have produced the largest
set of continguous areas mapped at both 1.1mm and 850um
wavelengths. Many new submillimeter galaxies have been identified in
the AzTEC maps and the SHADES collaboration has begun work on the
interpreation of the results. The data set is rich; the sheer size of
the survey along with the extensive multi-wavelength data available
give us the ability to do a systematic study of mm/submm spectral
indices, the relationship between SMGs and radio/MIPS sources,
clustering of the SMG population, photometric redshift techniques,
estimated stellar masses, morphologies and SF histories. Most
importantly, the large/deep survey allows us to calculate the most
precise measurement of the SMG number density as a function of flux
ever measured.
AzTEC/GOODS-N (P.I. E. Chapin)
The AzTEC/GOODS-N survey covers the area of deep HST/ACS and Spitzer
imaging in the Chandra Deep Field North. Though smaller in area than
the SHADES survey, this survey area is unique in terms of the
extensive multi-wavelength complementary data available. The AzTEC
survey has yielded many highly robust sources (We can't say here until
the paper comes out.). In most cases spectroscopic redshifts have
been obtained for the most probable counterparts, giving us a unique
view at the redshift distribution of the SMG population in the field.
AzTEC/COSMOS (P.I. D. Sanders)
The AzTEC/COSMOS survey is centered on a massive galaxy cluster at
z=0.73. This survey has resulted in the identification of an
unusually large number of bright (S{1.1mm}>= 5~mJy) SMGs with a
spatial distribution highly correlated to the projected galaxy density
along the line of sight. Seven of the 50 AzTEC sources from this
survey have been followed-up and detected by the Submillimeter array
with 2" resolution (see Younger et al. 2007), confirming that these
sources are individual galaxies and not pairs of blended sources.
4c41.17 and MS0451
In addition to the above surveys, we imaged the high-z radio galaxy
4c41.17 and the z=0.5 cluster MS0451. Both fields show evidence for
an overdensity of SMGs as in the AzTEC/COSMOS survey, and this has
motivated our largest key project for the AzTEC/ASTE set of surveys.