CALIFA: a diameter-selected sample for an integral field spectroscopy galaxy survey^⋆

¹ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: jwalcher@aip.de
² European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching b. München, Germany
³ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía, s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain
⁴ Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán, Calar Alto, (CSIC-MPG), C/Jesús Durbán Remón 2-2, 04004 Almería, Spain
⁵ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, C/Vía Láctea S/N, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁶ Dept. Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, C/ Astrofísico Francisco Sánchez, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁷ Departamento de Astrofísica y CC. de la Atmósfera, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid 28040, Spain
⁸ Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlárská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic
⁹ Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁰ Instituto de Cosmologia, Relatividade e Astrofísica – ICRA, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rua Dr. Xavier Sigaud 150, CEP 22290-180, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
¹¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, KY16 9SS, UK
¹² Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Astronomisches Recheninstitut, Mönchhofstr. 12–14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
¹³ Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Mexico, A.P. 70-264, 04510, Mexico, D.F.
¹⁴ Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Postbus 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
¹⁵ INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo Enrico Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy
¹⁶ University of Vienna, Türkenschanzstr. 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria
¹⁷ Institute of Astronomy, School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia
¹⁸ Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille - LAM, Université d’Aix-Marseille & CNRS, UMR 7326, 38 rue F. Joliot-Curie, 13388 Marseille Cedex 13, France
¹⁹ Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, PO Box 476, 88040-900 Florianópolis, SC, Brazil
²⁰ Laboratoire GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS-UMR 8111, Univ. Paris Diderot, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France
²¹ Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 36- D Santiago, Chile
²² Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 36-D, Santiago, Chile
²³ Dark Cosmology Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
²⁴ Astronomical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Boční II 1401/1a, 141 00 Prague, Czech Republic
²⁵ Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica, Luis E. Erro 1, 72840 Tonantzintla, Puebla, Mexico
²⁶ Departamento de Fisica Teorica, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid 28049, Madrid, Spain
²⁷ Department of Physics, Royal Military College of Canada, PO Box 17000, Station Forces, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7K 7B4

Received: 13 May 2014
Accepted: 27 June 2014

Abstract

We describe and discuss the selection procedure and statistical properties of the galaxy sample used by the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey, a public legacy survey of 600 galaxies using integral field spectroscopy. The CALIFA “mother sample” was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 photometric catalogue to include all galaxies with an r-band isophotal major axis between 45′′ and 79.2′′ and with a redshift 0.005 < z < 0.03. The mother sample contains 939 objects, 600 of which will be observed in the course of the CALIFA survey. The selection of targets for observations is based solely on visibility and thus keeps the statistical properties of the mother sample. By comparison with a large set of SDSS galaxies, we find that the CALIFA sample is representative of galaxies over a luminosity range of −19 > M_r > −23.1 and over a stellar mass range between 10^9.7 and 10^11.4 M_⊙. In particular, within these ranges, the diameter selection does not lead to any significant bias against – or in favour of – intrinsically large or small galaxies. Only below luminosities of M_r = −19 (or stellar masses <10^9.7 M_⊙) is there a prevalence of galaxies with larger isophotal sizes, especially of nearly edge-on late-type galaxies, but such galaxies form <10% of the full sample. We estimate volume-corrected distribution functions in luminosities and sizes and show that these are statistically fully compatible with estimates from the full SDSS when accounting for large-scale structure. For full characterization of the sample, we also present a number of value-added quantities determined for the galaxies in the CALIFA sample. These include consistent multi-band photometry based on growth curve analyses; stellar masses; distances and quantities derived from these; morphological classifications; and an overview of available multi-wavelength photometric measurements. We also explore different ways of characterizing the environments of CALIFA galaxies, finding that the sample covers environmental conditions from the field to genuine clusters. We finally consider the expected incidence of active galactic nuclei among CALIFA galaxies given the existing pre-CALIFA data, finding that the final observed CALIFA sample will contain approximately 30 Sey2 galaxies.