The DEEP2 redshift survey

The DEIMOS spectrograph is nearing completion in the UC Lick shops and will be delivered to the Keck Observatory in 2001. Once it is operational, a team of astronomers will initiate DEEP2, a major redshift survey of galaxies that will consume approximately 120 nights at the Keck Observatory over a three year period. Our goal is to gather high-quality spectra of approximate to 60, 000 galaxies with Z > 0.7 in order to study the properties and large scale clustering of galaxies at Z approximate to 1. The survey will be done at high spectral resolution, R = lambda/Deltalambda approximate to 3500, allowing us to work between the bright 011 sky emission lines and to infer linewidths for many of the target galaxies. The linewidth data will facilitate the execution of the classical redshift-volume cosmological test, which can provide a precision measurement of the equation of state of the Universe.