The Vimos-VLT Deep Survey: Results from the First-Epoch Observations.

The Vimos-VLT Deep Survey is a spectroscopic survey aiming at collecting more than 50000 spectra down to a limiting magnitude $I_{\mathrm{AB}}=24$, and 100000 down to $I_{\mathrm{AB}}=22.5$, on a total of about 16 deg$^2$ without any color or morphology preselection. We present the $N(z)$ distribution up to $z\sim 5$, obtained from a purely magnitude-limited sample down to $I_{\mathrm{AB}}=24$, which is an important input to weak-lensing studies. We discuss the evolution of the galaxy luminosity function up to $z\sim 2$, which exhibits a very strong increase in the typical galaxy luminosity $\Delta M^*\simeq -2.5$ in the U band compared to the local value. Surveys like the VVDS also allow to study the galaxy bias as a function of redshift without assumption about its linearity, an assumption that we find to be violated in some cases. A low bias is found, and the linear bias is shown to increase with redshift.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]