1. VST ATLAS Mike Irwin, Nigel Metcalfe, Tom Shanks, et al Featuring Utane Sawangwit, PhD +2QDES Michael Drinkwater, Scott Croom et al

2. VST ATLAS Survey  VST ATLAS (+VHS) ➝ Southern SDSS in ugriz (+YJHK)!  Exposures u: 2x60s, g: 2x50s, riz: 2x45s – one filter per hourly concatenations – ugr (dark), iz (gray.bright)  Newsflash – ESO Chilean VST time doubles u exposure to 4x60s  2-tile dither – 84" in Dec, 24" in RA  Offsets 58' in RA and Dec – 2' overlap  1"-1."4 seeing – better than SDSS median 1."4 –complements KIDS  No guide star needed so no overhead  ~45 nights per year for 2 years – accelerated!  Footprint ~2500deg 2 in SGC and ~2000deg 2 in NGC

3. OmegaCAM 80" gap ~20" gap

4. VST ATLAS Survey Area b=30 o b=-30 o

5. VST ATLAS Core Team  CASU (Mike Irwin et al, Cambridge) does the basic reduction using the VST Data Flow pipeline  Steve Maddox (Nottingham) leads the overall global calibration process  Nigel Metcalfe + Peter Draper (Durham) – OB submission + QC on the ATLAS products  WFAU (Bob Mann et al, Edinburgh) to provide archiving facilities, additional to the ESO archive

6. VST ATLAS Status – 6/2/12 ~750 deg 2 ugriz observed

7. SDSS-ATLAS zoom - r SDSSATLAS

8. SDSS-ATLAS zoom - g SDSSATLAS

9. SDSS-ATLAS zoom - u SDSSATLAS

10. ATLAS CASU ids – improve! ATLAS idsATLAS

11. WHDF v ATLAS + SDSS - u

12. WHDF v ATLAS + SDSS – b vs g D. Karagiannis et al

13. WHDF vs ATLAS+SDSS – i

14. ATLAS Science Summary  VST ATLAS – "Southern Sloan" – SDSS depth + ~1."2 resolution in ugriz over ~4500deg 2  Cosmology Package to rival WFIRST!  2QDES survey of up to ~500000 QSOs  BAO at z~1.6 via ATLAS+2dF UVX QSO clustering  Gravitational Growth rate at z~1.6 via QSOs  QSO Lensing vs galaxy ugrizYJHK photo-z  Probe of primordial large-scale Non-Gaussianity  ISW via LRGs  Other Science  Stellar Streams + Galactic Archaeology  Z~7 QSOs via ATLAS+VHS z dropouts  Beyond the Great Attractor + Fornax etc

15. 2QDES BAO vs BOSS  80deg -2 0.4<z<2.2 +3000deg 2  ~3  BAO detection  ⇒ ±3% BAO  105deg -2 1<z<2.2 and 4500deg 2  ~6  BAO detection  ⇒ ±1.7% BAO Sawangwit et al (2012), MNRAS, 420, 1916

16. 2QDES BAO vs BOSS  80deg -2 0.3<z<2.2 + 3000deg 2  ~3  BAO detection  ⇒ ±3% BAO  105deg -2 1<z<2.2 + 4500deg 2  ~6  BAO detection  ⇒ ±1.7% BAO  Competitive with BOSS! Sawangwit et al (2012), MNRAS, 420, 1916

17. 2QDES Pilot: 5 ATLAS fields → 2dF

18. ATLAS 2QDES ugri QSO selection  Simple selection in ugr and gri  + KDE selection of Bovy et al  Limit g<22.5

19. 2QDES 2dF AAOmega Pilot  50 min exposure on 20 December AAT Director's night  ATLAS field observed at RA 2h30 Dec-30  176 high quality QSO spectra observed!  ~66% QSO in fibres 1-200 but 38% QSO in fibres 201-400  2dF fibre positional problem – no guide stars in N half  Assuming 66% -> already achieving ~80deg -2  Compare to ~105deg -2 required to beat BOSS

20. Pilot Sample QSO Spectra

21. VST ATLAS 2QDES Pilot Loss of fibre flux caused by lack of allocated guide stars in Northern half of 2dF field

22. Fibre-ATLAS mag v fibre no. Significant light loss in fibres 201-400 caused by unallocated guide stars in half the field

23. 2MASS v ATLAS astrometry check

24. AAOmega Pilot z vs 2QZ z

25. AAOmega Pilot QSO N(z)

26. AAOmega Pilot QSO n(g) ~50% success rate being maintained at g~22 in only 50 min exposure

27. Summary  ~750deg 2 surveyed by ATLAS already  More or less achieving SDSS depth in ugriz  Chilean proposal to double u exposure time accepted  2dF AAOmega pilot already hitting QSO sky density of 80deg -2 to g~22 in 50min exposure  105deg -2 1<z<2.2 QSO target for April run  2QDES survey of ~0.5million QSOs still a possibility…  … for z~1.6 6  BAO, RSD, QSO Lensing + f NL + QSO BH-halo mass relation