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| Galaxy And Mass Assembly | |
|---|---|
| Name | Galaxy And Mass Assembly |
| Acronym | GAMA |
| Established | 2008 |
| Field | Astronomy, Astrophysics |
| Mission type | Spectroscopic survey |
| Principal investigator | Rob Sharp |
| Institutions | Australian Astronomical Observatory; Anglo-Australian Observatory; University of St Andrews; University of Edinburgh; Durham University; Macquarie University |
| Telescopes | Anglo-Australian Telescope |
| Wavelength | Optical; Near-infrared; Ultraviolet; Far-infrared; Radio |
| Notable surveys | Sloan Digital Sky Survey; Two-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey; VISTA Kilo-degree INfrared Galaxy survey; Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer |
Galaxy And Mass Assembly
Galaxy And Mass Assembly was a large multiwavelength spectroscopic and photometric survey that mapped galaxy populations and large-scale structure to study Cosmology, Galaxy formation, and Dark matter through coordinated observations with the Anglo-Australian Telescope, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, and space missions such as Herschel Space Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope. The project assembled redshifts, photometry, and environmental metrics for hundreds of thousands of galaxies across several equatorial fields, interfacing with programs led by institutions including the Australian Astronomical Observatory, the University of St Andrews, and the University of Edinburgh.
The survey targeted well-studied regions overlapping legacy projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Two Micron All Sky Survey, the VISTA Kilo-degree INfrared Galaxy survey, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer to build a homogeneous dataset for studies in Large-scale structure (cosmology), Galaxy clusters, Galaxy mergers, and Active galactic nucleus demographics. Scientific leadership involved collaborations among teams at the University of Oxford, Durham University, Imperial College London, Macquarie University, Australian National University, and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, leveraging instruments at facilities like the Anglo-Australian Telescope and the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope. Data products integrated measurements comparable to those from the GAMA Panchromatic Data Release, the SDSS Data Release 7, and catalogs used by the Herschel-ATLAS and HerMES consortia.
GAMA implemented a tiered selection strategy informed by photometric catalogs from the SDSS, VIKING, GALEX, and UKIDSS projects with spectroscopic targeting via the 2dF/AAOmega system on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The design emphasized contiguous equatorial fields complementary to the COSMOS and GAMA G15 footprints, using magnitude limits and surface-brightness cuts similar to those in 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and 6dF Galaxy Survey to optimize sampling of environments from voids to rich clusters like Abell 1689 analogs. Redshift measurement pipelines incorporated algorithms developed in parallel with software from the VIPERS and DEEP2 teams, and calibration referenced standards from the Hubble Space Telescope photometric system and spectrophotometric datasets used by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey consortium.
The collaboration issued multiple public releases that bundled spectroscopic redshifts, multi-band photometry, stellar-mass estimates, star-formation rates, and group catalogs comparable to resources produced by the Millennium Simulation project and the Illustris collaboration for model comparisons. Data reduction used pipelines interoperable with tools from the Astropy community and cross-matched catalogs from Pan-STARRS1, WISE, Herschel Space Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Releases included value-added catalogs for environment metrics, halo-mass assignments tied to group finders similar to those employed by the Yang et al. group catalog and mock catalogs based on semi-analytic prescriptions from teams at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and the Institute for Computational Cosmology.
GAMA enabled precise measurements of the galaxy stellar mass function, the halo mass function, galaxy color bimodality, and environmental dependencies of star-formation by comparing observational trends with predictions from the Lambda-CDM model, the Millennium Simulation, and hydrodynamic runs such as EAGLE and IllustrisTNG. Key outcomes included constraints on the relationship between stellar mass and halo mass that informed models by groups at Durham University and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, improved measurements of merger rates used alongside studies from COSMOS and CANDELS, and assessments of dust attenuation consistent with results from the Herschel-ATLAS collaboration. The survey produced catalogs of galaxy groups and filaments used to study processes identified in work by researchers from Imperial College London, University of Portsmouth, Swinburne University of Technology, and the University of Western Australia.
The project coordinated with major surveys and facilities including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, GALEX, Herschel Space Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, VISTA, UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey, Pan-STARRS, WISE, ALMA, and radio surveys such as the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder precursor programs and the FIRST survey. Collaborative science involved teams at the University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, Australian National University, Macquarie University, and international theory groups at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, the Institute for Computational Cosmology, and the Harvard & Smithsonian Astronomy community, facilitating joint analyses with the H-ATLAS and HerMES consortia and follow-up using facilities like the Very Large Telescope and the Keck Observatory.
The survey legacy persists through its public catalogs that continue to underpin statistical studies of galaxy evolution, halo occupation distributions, and environmental quenching, informing theoretical programs at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, the Institute for Computational Cosmology, and observational campaigns at the European Southern Observatory. Its datasets have been incorporated into meta-analyses alongside simulations such as EAGLE, IllustrisTNG, and the Millennium Simulation, and have influenced instrument planning at observatories including the Anglo-Australian Telescope, ALMA, and future facilities like the Square Kilometre Array and the Euclid mission. The survey catalyzed training and careers at institutions including University of St Andrews, Durham University, Macquarie University, and the Australian National University, seeding follow-up programs in extragalactic astronomy and cosmology.
Category:Astronomical surveys