An Optical/NIR Exploration of Proto-structure Environments at High Redshift with Keck and VLT

The past decade has been witness to immense progress in the understanding of the early stages of cluster formation both from a theoretical and observational perspective. During this time, samples of forming clusters at higher redshift, termed “proto-clusters”, once comprised of heterogeneous mix of serendipitous detections or detections arising from dedicated searches around rare galaxy populations, have begun to compete with lower-redshift samples both in terms of numbers and in the homogeneity of the detection methods. Much of this progress has come from optical/near-infrared (NIR) imaging and spectroscopic campaigns designed to target large numbers of typical galaxies to exquisite depth. In this poster I will focus on observations from VIMOS on VLT and MOSFIRE/DEIMOS on Keck, which have uncovered a large number of “proto-structures" at 2 < z < 5 that appear to resemble clusters and groups forming in the early universe. I will demonstrate the methods for finding, confirming, and characterizing proto-clusters and proto-groups in our sample. Several case studies of spectroscopically-confirmed massive proto-clusters with a diverse set of properties will be presented. I will finally present constraints on the relationship between star formation rate, stellar mass, and galaxy density at these redshifts.
Funded by the US National Science Foundation Grant Number #1908422