The original WAVES survey closely follows the GAMA formula by providing high-density spectroscopic coverage across specific regions of the sky in which superb imaging panchromatic data exists. GAMA sampled roughly 300,000 galaxies over 230 square degrees split into 5 regions, and extended down to r=19.8 mag. WAVES will ultimately cover 1150 square degrees down to Z=21.2 mag and sample roughly 1.7 million galaxies. In detail WAVES is split into three surveys each with distinct goals, these are WAVES-Wide, WAVES-Deep and WAVES-DDF as outlined below plus our 3 community surveys (ORCHIDSS, StePS and 4C3R2).
WAVES-Wide covers the largest area closely following on the footprint from the 2dFGRS, ESO VISTA VIKING and ESO VST Kihttp://ESO VST KiDSDS surveys that cover two large sky regions in the northern and southern Galactic caps.In total WAVES-Wide will cover 1150 square degrees and target all objects classified as galaxies with fluxes above Z=21.2mag and where the preliminary photometric redshift classification gives it a high probability of being at z<0.2. The key science is to map out the large-scale structure of the nearby Universe down to filament, tendril and void levels from which we can build dark matter halo catalogue to test the Lambda CDM model.
WAVES-Deep builds upon the GAMA G23 region that lies within the southern WAVES-Wide footprint. It covers the 50 square degrees and within this region our photometric redshift limit is extended out to z<0.8. The science goal here is to measure the evolution of large-scale structure and in particular the high-mass end of the halo mass function.
WAVES-DDF has the same selection as WAVES-Deep but covers a single 4 square degree hexagonal 4MOST AESOP pointing within the four sky regions defined by the Vera Rubin Observatory’s Large Synoptic Survey of Space and Time Deep Drill fields. These fields (ELIAS-S, XMMLSS, ECDFS, COSMOS) are well known sky regions that have attracted and continue to attract deep observations from numerous ground and space-based facitlities. Hence WAVES-DDF is very much about galaxy evolution and the study of spectral-energy distributions from the X-ray to the radio.