The discovery of a massive supercluster at z= 0.9 in the UKIDSS Deep eXtragalactic Survey

Abstract

Abstract We analyse the first publicly released deep field of the UK Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Deep eXtragalactic Survey to identify candidate galaxy overdensities at z∼ 1 across ∼1 deg2 in the ELAIS-N1 field. Using I−K, J−K and K− 3.6 μm colours, we identify and spectroscopically follow up five candidate structures with Gemini/Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph and confirm that they are all true overdensities with between five and 19 members each. Surprisingly, all five structures lie in a narrow redshift range at z= 0.89 ± 0.01, although they are spread across 30 Mpc on the sky. We also find a more distant overdensity at z= 1.09 in one of the spectroscopic survey regions. These five overdense regions lying in a narrow redshift range indicate the presence of a supercluster in this field and by comparing with mock cluster catalogues from N-body simulations we discuss the likely properties of this structure. Overall, we show that the properties of this supercluster are similar to the well-studied Shapley and Hercules superclusters at lower redshift.