RCSEDv2: the largest database of galaxy properties from a homogeneously processed multi-wavelength dataset
/ Authors
/ Abstract
The Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions of 800,000 galaxies (RCSED) includes the results of uniform re-processing of 800,000 SDSS DR7 galaxies at redshifts 0.007 < z < 0.6 complemented with ultraviolet-to-infrared photometric data from GALEX, SDSS, and UKIDSS. The key difference between RCSED and existing databases of galaxy properties (NED, HyperLeda, part of SIMBAD) is that rather than providing a compilation of literature data, we perform homogeneous data analysis of spectral and photometric data using our own tools and publish derived physical properties of galaxies along with re-calibrated spectra and photometry and their best-fitting models. Here we present the 2nd release of our catalog, RCSEDv2 where we substantially expanded the spectral dataset to 4 million objects by including spectral data analysis for 10 large spectroscopic surveys (SDSS, SDSS/eBOSS, LAMOST, Hectospec, CfA redshift surveys, 2dFGRS, 6dFGS, DEEP2/3, WiggleZ). The photometric part has also been expanded by including DESI Legacy Survey, DES, UHS, ESO Public Surveys, and WISE in addition to GALEX, SDSS, and UKIDSS used in the original RCSED. This makes RCSEDv2 the largest database of galaxy properties and homogeneously processed spectral and photometric data up-to-date and creates a foundation for the analysis of future large-scale spectral surveys DESI and 4MOST. 1. Motivation and Scope Statistical studies of galaxy formation and evolution require knowledge of galaxy properties going beyond simple redshift measurements. Millions of optical spectra became available over the past 2 decades as a result of wide-field spectroscopic surveys carried out at different observatories all over the world. In 2010–2017 we undertook a major effort to re-process 800,000 galaxy spectra from the legacy spectroscopic sample of SDSS. We complemented spectra with aperture and integrated photometry in the