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# Extremely Red Objects in the Field of QSO 1213–0017: A Galaxy Concentration at 𝑧 = 1.31Based in part on observations obtained with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which is operated by the STScI for the Association of Universities in Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Based in part on observations obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated jointly by the California Institute of Technology and the University of California.

## 1 Introduction

The observational study of galaxy formation and evolution can broadly be divided into two approaches: (1) searches for primordial galaxies, typically oriented toward high redshifts, in order to scrutinize formation and evolution processes as they occur, and (2) studies of existing old galaxies to decipher their origin and life history from their current properties. With the advent of infrared imaging detectors, a population of infrared-bright, extremely red objects (EROs) have been uncovered which is relevant to both of these approaches.

Elston et al. (1988) discovered a few objects with exceptional optical/IR colors ($`RK5`$) in the first deep near-IR sky survey. While the brightest objects were shown to be $`z0.8`$ ellipticals (Lilly et al., 1988; Elston et al., 1989), their tantalizing conjecture that the fainter ($`K18`$) red objects are $`z>1`$ ellipticals has remained unresolved until recently. Subsequent deep infrared imaging of primarily high-redshift radio galaxy and quasar fields serendipitously uncovered handfuls of objects with extreme colors (McCarthy et al., 1992; Eisenhardt & Dickinson, 1992; Graham et al., 1994; Hu & Ridgway, 1994; Soifer et al., 1994; Dey et al., 1995; Djorgovski et al., 1995). Deep multicolor optical/IR sky surveys have begun to assemble larger samples of these objects using well-defined selection criteria, an essential starting point for statistical studies (Cowie et al., 1994; Hall & Green, 1998; Cohen et al., 1999; Barger et al., 1999; McCracken et al., 2000). In particular, the recent availability of $`1024\times 1024`$ pixel IR detectors has made possible surveys for significant numbers of EROs (Thompson et al., 1999).

The use of the designation “extremely red” has varied in the literature. This was especially true in earlier work where the description was applied to any object appearing in IR images but undetected optically. In this paper, we follow Graham & Dey (1996) and use the term “extremely red object” (ERO) for a source with $`RK>6`$. This criteria was an operational one, encompassing several IR-detected, optically-invisible sources known at the time, and it has since become widely used. In particular, Thompson et al. (1999), who have conducted the widest deep $`RK`$ survey to date, also adopt this definition. They confirm EROs defined by this criteria are unusual objects, being the reddest 2% of the $`K20`$ field galaxy population. However, we will also pay attention in this paper to galaxies with $`RK>5`$, the criteria used by Elston et al. (1988) and Cohen et al. (1999), as this is about the expected color of passively-evolving elliptical galaxies at $`z1`$. We will generically refer to this larger sample as “red galaxies.”

EROs are very optically faint ($`R24`$) which has hampered studies of these objects. Successful spectroscopy to determine their redshifts and physical nature has only become possible with the development of the Keck 10-m telescope. Recent work has found some members of this “missing population” are luminous ($`L^{}`$) galaxies at $`z>1`$; hence determining their origin has direct relevance to the formation of massive galaxies and AGN. Being solely defined by optical/IR color, the few EROs with measured redshifts form a heterogeneous population as expected, comprising at least two broad classes: (1) ultraluminous dusty star-forming systems, perhaps akin to local objects like Arp 220, and (2) massive galaxies with old passively-evolving stellar populations.

The best studied ERO to date, ERO J164502+4626.4 (object 10 of Hu & Ridgway, 1994, hereinafter “HR10”), is the prototype for star-forming EROs. This object is a $`z=1.44`$ dusty, ultraluminous galaxy with enormous ongoing star formation ($`1000`$ $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$ yr-1) suggested by its sub-mm continuum emission (Graham & Dey, 1996; Cimatti et al., 1998; Dey et al., 1999). However, since HR 10 has among the reddest colors ($`IK=6`$) of known EROs, it is unrepresentative of the bulk of the population or at least is an extreme example. These EROs may provide excellent case studies of optically obscured star formation in the early Universe, especially given the association of faint EROs with some of the sub-mm emitting sources found by SCUBA (Smail et al., 1999). In fact, it may be that intense, very brief bursts of star formation are a common mode of star formation at high redshift.

There are also examples of EROs as galaxies with old stellar populations. Passively evolving ellipticals at $`z>1`$ are expected to have large $`RK`$ colors, which stem from their rising spectral energy distributions (SEDs) longward of $`4000`$ Å being redshifted into the near-IR. Therefore, selection using very red colors is an excellent method to search for early-type galaxies at $`z>1`$. This is especially true in searching for clusters since the surface density of galaxies becomes quite high at faint magnitudes and it would otherwise be hard to distinguish a cluster from the foreground and background populations. However, ellipticals at these distances are expected to be optically very faint so measuring spectroscopic redshifts is challenging. Dickinson (1995) has identified a cluster of elliptical galaxies associated with the powerful radio galaxy 3C 324 at $`z=1.206`$ along with a foreground structure at $`z=1.15`$. To date, the highest-redshift collection of old, red galaxies spectroscopically confirmed has been found by Stanford et al. (1997). They have discovered a $`z=1.27`$ cluster by its large $`JK`$ colors; the cluster galaxies have $`RK5`$ and rest-frame UV spectra resembling local elliptical galaxies. There is also a neighboring cluster at $`z=1.26`$ found from its X-ray emission by Rosati et al. (1999) which contains spectroscopically old red galaxies. Isolated examples of old EROs have been discovered at still higher redshifts. The very weak radio sources LBDS 53W091 at $`z=1.552`$ (Dunlop et al., 1996; Spinrad et al., 1997) and LDBS 53W069 at $`z=1.432`$ (Dunlop, 1998; Dey et al., 2000) both have $`RK6`$ and rest-frame UV spectra which imply ages of a few Gyr. Recently, Soifer et al. (1999) have identified an $`RK7`$ object as an old galaxy at $`z=1.58`$ based on associating a large continuum break observed at $``$1 µm with redshifted 4000 Å break.

Discovery of $`z>1`$ galaxies with old stellar populations offers several powerful lines of inquiry into understanding galaxy formation and evolution and its cosmological context. Detailed comparison of the absorption lines and continuum breaks of these galaxies with galaxies at $`z=0`$ may prove fruitful in tracing the evolutionary course and enrichment history of the oldest stellar populations. Absolute age dating of these galaxies would provide a constraint on the time scale of galaxy formation and the age of the Universe. Moreover, clusters of old galaxies at high redshift can provide testing grounds for competing scenarios of galaxy formation; the predicted appearance of early-type galaxies in these clusters is dramatically different in hierarchical galaxy formation scenarios as compared to monolithic collapse ones (e.g., Kauffmann & Charlot, 1998). Finally, the existence of these old galaxies at high redshift potentially can constrain cosmological parameters and theories of structure formation (e.g., Peacock et al., 1998).

We are conducting an on-going study of the nature of these EROs, using deep optical and near-IR imaging from the ground to assemble a large sample of EROs for statistical study. We have been acquiring high-resolution morphological information from HST optical and Keck near-IR imaging, and we are obtaining spectroscopy from Keck in the optical and near-IR to determine ERO redshifts and physical properties. Deciphering the identity of EROs based on comparing broad-band colors alone to theoretical stellar population synthesis models is dubious given that the model parameter space is vast, at least comprising age, metallicity, and reddening variations. Spectroscopy is essential. In addition, given the apparent heterogeneity of the population, a reasonably large sample of objects needs to be studied to understand the nature and relative abundances of the subsets, instead of the spectroscopy of individual EROs which has been done to date.

In this paper, we present a study of the EROs in the field of QSO 1213–0017 (RA = 12h15m49.8s, Dec = –0034′34″ ; J2000.0). This $`z=2.69`$ quasar, also known as UM 485, has exceptionally strong and complex Mg II absorption systems at $`z=1.3196`$ and $`z=1.5534`$ (Steidel & Sargent, 1992). In § 2, we describe optical and near-IR imaging covering an 11 arcmin-2 region around this field and Keck optical spectroscopic follow-up of galaxies selected by their very red colors. We consider in § 3 the surface density of the red galaxies, their morphologies, and their spectroscopic redshifts. We examine in § 4 the collection of red galaxies as a whole, both their spatial distribution to consider the possibility that they are members of a cluster at $`z=1.31`$ and their spectrophotometric properties to understand their stellar populations. We summarize our findings in § 5 and discuss their implications.

Throughout this paper, we assume a cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$, and $`H_0=50h_{50}`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. At $`z=1.31`$ with these parameters, 1″ = 8.58 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc; the luminosity distance $`d_L=9.40`$ $`h_{50}^1`$ Gpc; and the angular diameter distance $`d_\theta =1.78`$ $`h_{50}^1`$ Gpc.

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 Optical Imaging

Optical imaging of the field of QSO 1213–0017 was obtained in April 1993 using the KPNO 4-m Mayall telescope as part of a program to image $`z>1`$ Mg II absorbing galaxies near QSO sightlines (see Steidel, 1995). We used the PFCCD equipped with a $`2048\times 2048`$ Tektronix CCD and a pixel scale of 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$47/pixel. A total integration of 3500 s was obtained through the $``$-band filter ($`\lambda _c=6930`$ Å, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =1500`$ Å) under photometric conditions and 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$25 FWHM seeing. The data were reduced using standard techniques and calibrated onto the AB magnitude system111Note that our preliminary results in Liu et al. (1999) designated the $``$ filter as “$`R_S`$” and presented Vega-based magnitudes, instead of AB ones. For the $``$ filter, the offset from AB mags to Vega-based mags is –0.28 mag, i.e., $`^{Vega}=^{AB}0.28`$. using spectrophotometric standard stars from the lists of Massey et al. (1988) and Oke & Gunn (1983). The $``$ filter is a compromise between the standard Cousins $`R_C`$ and $`I_C`$ filters. A filter trace for $``$ and a photometric transformation to the Kron-Cousins system are given in Steidel & Hamilton (1993). For the very red objects considered in this paper, $`R_C`$ after accounting for the color terms, so the $`K`$ colors given for the EROs in this paper are roughly equivalent to $`R_CK`$ colors given for other EROs in the literature (see § 3.1).

We obtained four images of the 1213–0017 field with the WFPC2 camera aboard Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on U.T. 1998 January 11. Data were taken using the $`F814W`$ filter with a total integration of 4500 s. The integrations were taken in slightly offset positions, allowing reasonable identification of cosmic ray hits in the individual images which were then excluded from the averaging to create the final image.

### 2.2 Near-IR Imaging

#### 2.2.1 KPNO

Infrared data were obtained in February 1994 on the KPNO 4m Mayall telescope using the IRIM imager, equipped with a $`256\times 256`$ NICMOS-3 HgCdTe detector and sampling the sky at 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$60/pixel. A total integration time of 3660 s was obtained in a non-repetitive grid, in which the telescope was moved after each 60 s of integration time. Conditions were photometric with 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$0 FWHM seeing. The data were reduced using the DIMSUM package (Eisenhardt, Stanford, Dickinson, & Ford, priv. communication) in IRAF.222IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.  The data were calibrated using the UKIRT faint standards (Casali & Hawarden, 1992), resulting in Vega-based magnitudes. The data were taken in the $`K_S`$ filter (McLeod et al., 1995) which is slightly bluer and narrower than the standard $`K`$ filter. As discussed by Hall et al. (1998), the shift between $`K_S`$ and $`K_{UKIRT}`$ is expected to be quite small, less than 0.04 mag for objects as red as $`HK=1`$. In the absence of IR colors for all the objects to compute color terms, we assume $`K_S=K`$ hereinafter, which will have a negligible effect on any of our results.

#### 2.2.2 Keck

We obtained deeper, higher spatial resolution IR imaging of two sub-fields on U.T. 1998 May 14–15 using the facility near-IR camera NIRC (Matthews & Soifer, 1994) of the 10-meter W. M. Keck I Telescope located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The camera employs a Santa Barbara Research Corporation 256 $`\times `$ 256 InSb array and has a pixel scale of 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$150/pixel resulting in a 38″ field. We observed 2 fields close to the quasar, one to the southwest (containing R4, R5, and R6) and one to the northeast (containing R7, R9, and R10). The SW field, centered about (–27″ E, –7″ N) from QSO 1213–0017, was observed with the standard $`JHK`$ filters with integration times of 900, 2040, and 2280 s, respectively, totaled over the two nights. The NE field, centered about (27″ E, 10″ N) from QSO 1213–0017, was observed in $`J`$ for 780 s and in $`K`$ for 1200 s on 15 May 1998 UT. We used integration times of 6 or 20 s per coadd, depending on the filter. After one minute of integration was coadded, the sum was saved as an image, and then the telescope was offset by a few arcseconds. The telescope was stepped through a non-redundant dither pattern, and an off-axis CCD camera was used to guide the telescope during the observations. Conditions were non-photometric while observing the NE field and also for part of the SW field observations. For the SW field, we culled frames which were non-photometric from the reduction process. For the NE field, the data are used only to examine morphologies.

The data were reduced in a manner typical for near-IR images. An average dark frame was subtracted from each image to remove the bias level. We constructed a flat field by median averaging scaled images of the twilight sky. A preliminary sky subtraction of the images was performed to identify astronomical objects. Then for each image, we subtracted a local sky frame constructed from the average of prior and subsequent images, excluding any of the identified astronomical objects from the averaging. We used the brightest source in each field to register the reduced frames, which were then shifted by integer pixel offsets and averaged to assemble a mosaic of the field. Bad pixels were identified by intercomparing the registered individual images and masked during the construction of the mosaic. All these reductions were done using custom software written for Research System Incorporated’s IDL software package (version 5.1).

We observed the faint HST IR standard SJ 9143 (Persson et al., 1998) as a flux calibrator so the resulting magnitudes are Vega-based. Aperture photometry of the registration object in each individual frame verified the SW field data which were retained were nearly photometric, with any systematic errors of order 5% or less. There are no obvious point sources in the images, but the most compact objects have a FWHM of $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$.

### 2.3 Optical/Near-IR Photometry

To identify very red objects, we compiled a photometric catalog of all objects in the KPNO $`K`$-band mosaic using the SExtractor software of Bertin & Arnouts (1996), version 2.0.21. Each pixel in the $`K`$-band image was multiplied by the square root of its exposure time to create a mosaic with uniform noise over the entire field. Objects in the noise-normalized mosaic were then identified as any set of contiguous pixels 1.5$`\sigma `$ above the background level with an area equal to a FWHM-diameter circular aperture (10 pixels), i.e., a highly significant detection, and then aperture photometry was done on the original $`K`$-band image. We used the resulting “$`\mathrm{𝙼𝙰𝙶}\mathrm{\_}\mathrm{𝙱𝙴𝚂𝚃}`$” magnitudes, which for uncrowded objects use apertures determined from the moments of each object’s light distribution. This method is similar to that of Kron (1980) and is designed to recover most of an object’s flux while keeping errors low. The $``$ image was transformed to be registered with the $`K`$ image, and photometry was done using the same apertures for each object as for the $`K`$-band image. The Galactic reddening towards this field is small, $`E(BV)=0.02`$ (Schlegel et al., 1998), so we apply no extinction corrections to the photometry.

We ran Monte Carlo simulations to verify the accuracy of the measured magnitudes and errors. We inserted 10 artificial stars of known magnitude and color into the images and then processed the images with SExtractor in the same fashion as the original data. For each magnitude and color bin, we ran the simulation 30 times for a total of 300 stars and then compared the recovered magnitudes and colors to the input ones in order to determine the random and systematic photometric errors. The artificial stars were chosen to span a range in magnitude and color encompassing all the real objects, with 0.5 mag steps in $`K`$ magnitude and 1 mag steps in $`K`$ color. A low-order polynomial surface was then fitted to the photometric errors from the simulations as a function of $`K`$ magnitude and $`K`$ color, and the fit coefficients were used to assign photometric errors for the real objects. In all cases the systematic offset from the input magnitude to mean recovered magnitude for the artificial stars was always much smaller than the 1$`\sigma `$ random errors, so we applied no systematic corrections to the photometry of the real objects. The errors produced by SExtractor were found to agree well with the errors deduced from the simulations, except for objects near the detection limit. In principal, there will be a surface brightness dependence since errors measured from stars will not be the same as those measured from less compact sources such as galaxies (e.g., Bershady et al., 1998). However, this effect is more important for determining the completeness corrections, which is not relevant to our work here, and, furthermore, at the faint limit the majority of our sources are nearly unresolved so any error in measuring the error will be negligible.

Since the Keck/NIRC imaging reaches fainter magnitudes than the KPNO data, they were processed separately, but using SExtractor in an analogous fashion. Objects were identified and photometric apertures were determined from the $`K`$-band image. This information was used to process the other bands, with Monte Carlo simulations used to compute photometric errors.

### 2.4 Optical Spectroscopy

We observed the 1213–0017 field with the 10-m Keck II Telescope using the facility optical spectrograph LRIS (Oke et al., 1995) on U.T. 1999 June 15. We prepared a focal plane mask of 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5-wide slitlets to observe seven objects with $`K>5`$. The length of each slitlet varied, with a minimum length of 14″. We used the 150 lines/mm grating blazed at 7500 Å to cover a nominal wavelength region from 4000–10000 Å, depending on the position of the slitlets on the mask. The dispersion of $``$4.8 Å/pixel resulted in a spectral resolution of $``$25 Å, as measured by the FWHM of a few strong emission lines of serendipitous objects and the lines of the calibration arc lamp spectra. Sky conditions were photometric with seeing of 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$45 at the start of the integrations. We obtained 3 exposures of 1800 s each with the mask oriented at a position angle of 46 east of north. We dithered the telescope a few arcseconds along the slit direction between each exposure.

The slitmask data for the objects were separated into seven individual spectra and then reduced using standard longslit tasks in IRAF. The data were bias-corrected using the unilluminated pre- and post-scan regions of the detector and flat-fielded using internal quartz lamps obtained immediately after the observations. Sky lines were subtracted by fitting a low-order analytic function to each column of the images, perpendicular to the dispersion axis. We corrected each exposure for long-wavelength fringing by taking an average of the other 2 exposures and subtracting this average. The exposures were registered and combined. The most compact objects in the resulting mosaic are $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6`$ FWHM in the spatial direction, though they may not be point sources. A 1-d spectrum of each red galaxy was extracted using a 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$3 (6 pixel) wide aperture and was wavelength-calibrated using HgKr and NeAr lamps taken immediately after the observations, with an RMS of $`0.30.4`$ Å in the wavelength solutions. Zeropoint shifts of $`2`$ Å were applied to the spectra based on the measured wavelengths of the night sky lines. Flux calibration was performed using the standard star G191B2B (Massey et al., 1988; Massey & Gronwall, 1990)

## 3 Results

### 3.1 An Excess of EROs

Figure 1 presents the KPNO $``$-band and $`K`$-band images of the 1213–0017 field, which cover an area of 11.2 arcmin-2. Figure 2 shows the field’s color-magnitude diagram along with the no-evolution locus of local elliptical galaxies redshifted to $`z=1.3`$, computed from multicolor photometry of the Coma cluster as described in Stanford et al. (1998). If we were to account for passive stellar evolution, the locus would appear somewhat bluer and brighter.

A population of objects with red ($`K>5`$) colors are found starting at $`K18`$ mag, irregularly distributed on the sky. Most of the galaxies are somewhat bluer than the Coma locus at $`z=1.3`$, and the brightest of the EROs have $`K`$-band fluxes comparable to the brightest Coma cD galaxies. As we discuss below, there is a significant excess of red objects in this field compared to the surface density measured from blank sky surveys. However, before analyzing the counts of the reddest objects, we must first account for a few issues: (1) the effective wavelength of the $``$ filter is significantly redder ($`350`$ Å) than the standard Cousins $`R_C`$ filter; (2) our data becomes incomplete at $`K19.5`$, as gauged by the turnover in the number counts; and (3) the exposure time is not uniform over the field, with only about half the field receiving at least 50% of the maximum integration. (Also, there will be some added uncertainty since the abundance of the reddest objects has a strong dependence on the choice of color and magnitude cuts.)

The most extensive $`RK`$ color-selected counts in a blank field of the sky come from the CADIS survey of Thompson et al. (1999). They find a surface density of $`0.039\pm 0.016`$ arcmin-2 in an area of 154 arcmin2 for the bright EROs ($`RK\mathrm{}>6`$ and $`K\mathrm{}<19`$), slightly revised to $`0.047\pm 0.009`$ arcmin-2 in their final survey area of 600 arcmin2 (D. Thompson, priv. communication). Direct comparison of our ERO counts with theirs is complicated as their $`R_{CADIS}`$ filter is $`450`$ Å bluer than our $``$ filter. Because EROs are very red and their number counts are a strong function of $`RK`$ color, the difference is significant. (The difference in IR filters, their $`K\mathrm{}`$ versus our $`K_S`$, is much less important.) We computed the offset between $`R`$ filters as a function of redshift using the elliptical galaxy SED of Coleman et al. (1980). The true SEDs of the ERO population(s) are unknown, but we adopt this template as a reasonable guess. At $`z=0`$, $`(R_{CADIS})`$ is –0.08 mag; the difference is negative due to the fact that $``$ mags are AB and $`R_{CADIS}`$ mags are Vega-based (see footnote 1). This difference increases nearly monotonically with redshift out to $`z1.5`$, becoming as large as 0.4 mag. For redshifts of $`0.51.7`$, the calculated offset is $`0.17`$ mag. Since the few EROs with known redshifts lie in this range, we add 0.17 mag to our measured $`K`$ colors to compare to the Thompson et al. results. This is the minimum expected amount for the transformation (i.e., an ERO at $`z=0.5`$) and therefore leads to conservative estimates for the 1213–0017 ERO overdensity.

After accounting for this difference in filters, we find five $`K19`$ objects with $`(R_{CADIS}K)>6`$ in our images, four of which lie in the central 6.2 arcmin2 area which received least half of the maximum integration time. Since the counts over the whole mosaic are guaranteed to be incomplete, we consider only this central region. The counts of Thompson et al. (1999) predict 0.24 objects in a 6.2 arcmin2 area, 16$`\times `$ fewer than observed. The Poisson probability of our observing four or more EROs given the expected surface density is only $`1.1\times 10^4`$, i.e., the overabundance of EROs in the 1213–0017 field is highly statistically significant. The probability grows to 5% if the blank sky counts are increased by a factor of 5.7, i.e., the 1213–0017 ERO surface density is overabundant by this factor at the 95% confidence level.

Similarly, with the less restrictive color criteria of $`(R_{CADIS}K)=56`$, where the blue cutoff is about the color of a passively evolving single-burst population at $`z1`$ (Figure 9), the Thompson et al. (1999) data predict 2.4 objects with $`K19`$ while we observe 7 objects. The Poisson probability of finding at least this many objects is $`1.2\times 10^3`$, and the enhancement of such objects in the 1213–0017 field is at least a factor of 1.4 at the 95% confidence level.

We can combine the counts in the $`(R_{CADIS}K)>6`$ and $`(R_{CADIS}K)=56`$ bins to compute the enhancement of the 1213–0017 field over the blank sky counts. We compute the joint probability of observing the 4 and 7 galaxies in these two color bins over a range of enhancement factors and find the most likely excess is a factor of 4.2, with the 95% confidence range being factors of 2.2–7.1. Note that this calculation assumes the enhancement is the same for both color bins, which may not be the case.

### 3.2 Morphologies of the Red Galaxies

Figure 3 and 4 show the reduced Keck/NIRC $`K`$-band mosaics for the fields NE and SW of QSO 1213–0017. Note that the images reach different limiting depths; the faintest objects in the NE and SW data are $``$20.5 and 21.3 mag, respectively. We compare these data with the HST $`F814W`$ images in Figure 5 to examine the observed optical and IR morphologies of the objects with $`K>5`$. The HST images are centered on the QSO so we do not have images for the red galaxies farther away, including unfortunately R1 and R8 for which we have continuum-break spectroscopic redshifts (§ 3.3.2). For $`z=1.3`$, these datasets roughly correspond to the rest-frame near-UV/blue (3100 – 4100 Å) and far-red (8700 – 10400 Å). \[O II\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission lies in the $`F814W`$ filter bandpass for objects at $`z0.91.5`$. All the red objects are extended in the HST images meaning they cannot be galactic M dwarfs. A few of them appear to be E/S0 type. The HST images are relatively shallow ($`3\sigma `$ limiting surface brightness $`\mu _{F814W}25.7`$ mag arcsec-2), but we can still see faint emission around a number of the red galaxies. Several seem to have both a central spheroid and a faint component suggestive of a disk, while a few are entirely diffuse emission without any compact core/bulge. None show any strong evidence for interactions. Overall, the detected red galaxies show remarkable consistency in their morphologies between the $`F814W`$ and $`K`$-band images. We return to this issue in § 4.2.1.

### 3.3 Optical Spectroscopy

From the 2-d reduced spectra, we were able to identify spectroscopic features in five of the red galaxies on our slitmask, both from emission lines and continuum breaks (Table 1). To more accurately determine the redshifts and their errors, we used the Fourier cross-correlation technique of Tonry & Davis (1979) as implemented in the FXCOR task of IRAF. We linearly interpolated over significant residuals in the spectra resulting from imperfect cancellation of the strongest telluric features. The three absorption-break galaxies were cross-correlated against the UV spectra of F and G dwarfs from the IUE Spectra Atlas of Wu et al. (1991), using an average spectrum for each spectral type. The spectra of the emission-line galaxies were cross-correlated against the emission-line template of an Sc galaxy from Kinney et al. (1996).

#### 3.3.1 R6 and R7 — Emission-Line Galaxies

The spectrum of R6 shows a single emission line with an observed equivalent width (EW) of $``$60 Å (Figure 6). There is ample continuum blueward of the line so we identify it as \[O II\] $`\lambda `$3727, placing R6 at $`z=1.203`$, slightly in the foreground of the other redshifts in this field. Assuming this emission originates from H II regions of massive young stars, we infer a star formation rate of $`10h_{50}^2`$ $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$ yr-1 using the \[O II\] calibration of Kennicutt (1992), comparable to the most active spirals in the local neighborhood (Kennicutt, 1983).

The spectrum of R7 reveals the presence of an active galactic nucleus at $`z=1.319`$ (Figure 6). The data show strong lines of \[O II\] $`\lambda `$3727 and C II\] $`\lambda `$2326 with observed equivalent widths of $`50`$ Å. The C III\] $`\lambda `$1909 line is possibly detected, though this line falls near the blue end of the spectrum where the signal is quite low. Examination of the reduced images clearly shows a weak \[Ne IV\] $`\lambda `$2424 emission line which lies on the red edge of the strong \[O I\] $`\lambda `$6300 telluric line, preventing a good measurement. Strangely, no Mg II $`\lambda `$2800 emission line is seen, even though it is typically at least as strong as \[Ne IV\] $`\lambda `$2424 and C II\] $`\lambda `$2326 in high-$`z`$ AGN (e.g., Stern et al., 1999). Presumably the emission line is absorbed by gas in this galaxy though no strong Mg II $`\lambda `$2800 absorption feature is seen. Also, there are some possible weak absorption features in the 8800–9200 Å range near the expected location of the higher order Balmer lines, in particular at 8896 Å which matches the Balmer H9 transition. However, spectra become quite noisy in this region and the features are not overly compelling. Finally, these are no signs of an old stellar population as the strongest continuum breaks (B2640, B2900, D4000) and the Ca H+K lines are all absent.

#### 3.3.2 R1, R8, and R10 — Old Continuum-Break Galaxies

Three of the red galaxies on our slitmask — R1, R8, and R10 — are devoid of strong emission lines (Figures 7), but they do show continuum breaks identifiable as the rest-frame mid-UV (2000 – 3300 Å) breaks of B2640 and B2900 at $`z=`$ 1.317, 1.298, and 1.290, respectively. The breaks arise from metal-line blanketing on either side of the tophat-shaped feature from 2640–2720 Å. These features, which were first suggested by Morton et al. (1977) as possibly being useful for redshift determinations at $`z>0.75`$, have been used recently to identify old galaxies out to $`z1.55`$ (Dunlop et al., 1996; Dey et al., 2000). At least two of the red galaxies may also have Mg II $`\lambda `$2800 in absorption. These spectral features are characteristic of old stellar populations, such as Galactic and M31 globular clusters, M32, and the cores of local elliptical galaxies (e.g., Rose & Deng, 1999; Ponder et al., 1998, and references therein). Galaxies R8 and R10 also may show the 4000 Å break at $`9200`$ Å.

For these three galaxies, we determined the redshifts using the 4300–8000 Å region of the spectra in the cross-correlation analysis. At longer wavelengths, the random errors increase from enhanced telluric OH emission, and the systematic errors also increase from imperfect removal of the CCD fringing pattern, due to the small number of exposures we were able to acquire. In addition to the choice of wavelength region, another important aspect of the redshift determination is the choice of stellar template. We explored template spectra ranging from spectral types F0 to G8, using both the Fourier analysis and a direct computation of the cross-correlation between galaxy and template as a function of redshift. All templates produced fairly consistent redshifts using both methods. Figure 8 shows the rest-frame galaxy spectra with IUE stellar spectra overplotted for comparison.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 A Concentration of Red Galaxies at $`z`$ = 1.31

We have measured five redshifts for the red galaxies in the 1213–0017 field. Four of these lie near $`z=1.31`$ with the remaining one at $`z=1.203`$. The spectrum of QSO 1213–0017 also shows an Mg II absorption system at $`z=1.3196`$ (Lanzetta et al., 1987; Steidel & Sargent, 1992), similar to the redshift of $`1.319\pm 0.002`$ for galaxy R7. Could this galaxy be responsible for the absorption? It is located 15″ from the QSO, which is 130 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc. Based on preliminary results from a survey of $`z=0.30.9`$ Mg II absorbers by Steidel (1993) and Steidel & Dickinson (1995), the median projected impact parameter between QSOs and their best candidate absorber is 45 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc with an upper bound of 80 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc. Early results from their $`z>1`$ survey find the absorber properties are not dramatically different compared to the lower redshift sample (Steidel, 1995; Dickinson & Steidel, 1996). The projected separation of R7 therefore seems too large for it to be the Mg II absorber, though the geometry and extent of Mg II absorption systems remain open questions (c.f. Steidel, 1995; Charlton & Churchill, 1996). In addition, our HST images show a few faint galaxies with projected separations from the QSO of $`80h_{50}^1`$ kpc, making them better candidates for the absorber. Since R7 is unlikely to be the Mg II absorber, we infer that there is at least one more galaxy at $`z=1.3196`$.

Including the Mg II absorber, there are five galaxies within an angular region of 3′ and close together in velocity. Their redshifts have an unweighted mean of 1.309 and a standard deviation $`\sigma =1790\pm 570`$ km s-1 in the mean rest frame.333The above results use the standard formulae. Similar results are obtained using the central location (“mean”) and scale (“dispersion”) estimators recommended by Beers et al. (1990) for non-Gaussian velocity distributions. Their preferred central location measures for a sample of this size, the median and the biweight-estimated mean, give $`z=1.317`$ and 1.319, respectively. The gapper method they advocate for computing the scale gives 1840 km s-1. The full spread in redshift is 3800 km s-1 in the mean rest frame; for comparison, consider that 95% of the galaxies in the central 6 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc of the Coma cluster and with $`cz<12,000`$ kms lie within $`\pm 3500`$ km s-1 (Postman et al., 1998). The considerable dispersion and range of the 1213–0017 redshifts are possibly due to velocity sub-structure in this field. There is a hint of this in the data: two of the galaxies (R8 and R10) lie at $`z=1.2901.298`$ while the other three are at $`z=1.3171.320`$, i.e., there is a “gap” of 2500 km s-1 in the mean rest frame, although there is no clear segregation of the two subsets on the sky. We may be seeing two separate physical entities close in redshift (e.g., filaments/sheets/sub-clusters) which may later merge into one, but this speculation lies beyond the available data.

Interestingly, the few known $`z1`$ massive clusters show large velocity dispersions and/or signs of sub-structure, e.g., the 3C 324 “cluster” at $`z=1.15`$ and 1.21 (Dickinson, 1997); RX J1716.6+6708 at $`z=0.81`$ (Henry et al., 1997; Gioia et al., 1999; Clowe et al., 1998); and CL 0023+0423 at $`z=0.84`$ (Postman et al., 1998; Lubin et al., 1998). Spectroscopically confirmed galaxies in these clusters have angular extents of a few arcminutes but are not strongly concentrated on the sky, which is also the case for the red galaxies in the 1213–0017 field. In the case of ClG J0848+4453 at $`z=1.27`$ and the neighboring RXJ0848.9+4452 at $`z=1.26`$ (Stanford et al., 1997; Rosati et al., 1999), each individual cluster is fairly compact but taken together these two add up to an entity with a large velocity range separated by only a few arcminutes.

In addition to the galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts, we can use optical/IR colors to constrain the redshifts of objects in the SW field, the only one with photometric data in all filters (see § 2). The galaxies’ $`JK`$ colors are consistent with Bruzual & Charlot (1996) models of old stellar populations at $`z=12`$ (Figure 9), with the identification largely based on the change in $`J`$ color. The $`JHK`$ colors provide less sensitivity, but they are consistent with the same redshift interval (Figure 10).

To summarize, the collection of red galaxies in the 1213–0017 field is concentrated in redshift at $`z1.31`$. The small number of measured redshifts prevents any definitive conclusions, but the redshifts do have a considerable spread. The red galaxies are spread over $`1.5h_{50}^1`$ Mpc on the sky, with a surface density about a factor of four above $`RK>5`$ counts and a factor of 16 above bright ERO counts in blank fields (§ 3.1). Although we do not know all their redshifts, it is quite plausible that most of the red galaxies are at $`z=1.31`$, as we discuss in the next section.

### 4.2 Old Stellar Populations at $`z`$ = 1.31

#### 4.2.1 Origin of the Extremely Red Galaxy Colors

With the Keck and HST findings, we now examine more closely the origin of the colors of the 1213–0017 red galaxies and EROs. Their colors are consistent with $`z>1`$ ellipticals (Figures 2 and 9), and we have confirmed this inference for three of them using Keck spectroscopy. For these galaxies there is little doubt the large $`K`$ colors are due to old stellar populations with a negligible amount of dust. For the red galaxies in the SW field, their $`JHK`$ colors are also consistent with unreddened $`z=12`$ ellipticals (Figures 9 and 10); the one SW galaxy with a Keck spectrum, R6, supports this idea as it lies at $`z=1.203`$, though its redshift is based on weak \[O II\] emission. (The spectrum has insufficent S/N to detect any continuum breaks, if present.) So even if R6 is composed of an old, red stellar population (its $``$-band flux is only marginally brightened by the \[O II\] line), the emission line points to a small amount of simultaneous star-formation or weak AGN activity. In fact, R6 has quite a different appearance in optical as compared to the near-IR (Figure 5) which may suggest significant dust reddening in its central regions, unlike most of the other red galaxies (see below).

The other galaxy with a spectroscopic redshift, R7, has an optically revealed AGN. Its $`K`$ color is far too red compared to typical Seyferts (e.g., Kotilainen & Ward, 1994). Its redness might come from dust or from old stars, although its optical spectrum shows no signs of the latter. If the Balmer features in the spectrum are real, this would suggest R7 has experienced significant star formation in the last few $`10^8`$ years and would hint that the red colors are due to dust reddening.

For the remaining 1213–0017 red galaxies, we have no direct evidence about their redshift nor their stellar content; all that we know is their $`K`$ colors. One unlikely cause for their redness would be a strong emission line redshifted into the $`K`$-band; the lowest possible redshift for this to occur would be for H$`\alpha `$ at $`z2.12.6`$. It seems implausible that all or even any of these galaxies are at this redshift given the very low surface density of strong high-redshift H$`\alpha `$ emitters (e.g., Thompson et al., 1996; Beckwith et al., 1998; Teplitz et al., 1998). In fact, the more likely case of emission-line contamination of the broad-band magnitudes is in the $``$-band, either from H$`\alpha `$ or \[O II\]; more than half of $`z=0.51.3`$ field galaxies show \[O II\] emission (Hammer et al., 1997). In this case, the measured $`K`$ colors would be slightly bluer than the true color of the underlying stellar continuum.

We find the observed optical and near-IR morphologies are fairly regular and in good agreement with one another (Figure 5). Both of these tell us that dust reddening in these galaxies is spatially uniform on scales of $`4h_{50}^1`$ kpc, as small as $`0.9h_{50}^1`$ kpc for the HST images. This is in sharp contrast to the highly wavelength-dependent appearance of the prototypical ERO HR 10: in the rest-frame near-UV/blue it has an inverted S-shape while in the rest-frame red it shows a smooth compact appearance (Dey et al., 1999). This implies HR 10 is an interacting/disturbed system whose central region has a large amount of dust, an interpretation augmented by its sub-mm emission which presumably springs from a large amount of ongoing dusty star formation. HST optical morphologies for the first sub-mm selected sources, which are possibly similar to HR 10, also show disturbed appearances (Smail et al., 1998). Likewise, the rest-frame UV appearance of local ultraluminous IRAS galaxies (ULIRGs) are significantly different than their appearance at longer wavelengths (Trentham et al., 1999).

Therefore, we conclude the wavelength-independent appearance of the 1213–0017 red galaxies means they are unlikely to be dusty star-forming galaxies like HR10 or ULIRGs. Though dust reddening may still still play a role, most of their redness probably originates from the light of old stars. Dust variations could still exist on spatial scales below our resolution limits. For this reason, attempts to fit the broad-band SEDs are potentially misleading given the uncertainties in the dust geometry and distribution — such fits would be highly degenerate. Near-IR images with comparable spatial resolution to the HST optical data are needed to address this possibility.

#### 4.2.2 Rest-Frame UV Spectral Features

Comparisons between the galaxy spectra and the IUE stellar spectra show the three continuum-break galaxies have real differences in their rest-frame mid-UV spectra. The spectra of R10 rises most rapidly to the red and has the strongest 2640 Å and 2900 Å breaks, while R1’s continuum is noticeably flatter and its breaks are the weakest, especially the 2900 Å break. R8’s spectrum is intermediate between R10 and R1. Results from both cross correlation analysis (§ 3.3.2) and examination by eye find R1 is best-matched by early-type F dwarfs, R8 by mid-type F dwarfs, and R10 by late-type F and early-type G dwarfs (Figure 8) in this wavelength region. Furthermore, even when the IUE spectra are normalized only to the galaxy flux longward of 3000 Å, there is still good agreement between the star and galaxy spectra all the way to the bluest wavelengths. This suggests any ongoing or recent star formation, which would be revealed by a rising blue continuum, is small.

The UV continuum breaks at 2640 Å and 2900 Å are of special interest. This region of an old galaxy’s SED is expected to be dominated by light from stars near the main-sequence turnoff. As the stellar population ages, the main-sequence turnoff mass decreases, and later-type stars produce the UV SED, leading to larger break amplitudes. In this fashion the rest-frame UV spectrum might be used to age date the stellar population, or at least the portion contributing the bulk of the UV flux. Spinrad et al. (1997) attempted to do this in a robust fashion for the old galaxy LBDS 53W091 at $`z=1.55`$. Given difficulties of absolute age calibration for these features and their uncertain metallicity dependence (Heap et al., 1998; Yi et al., 1999a), we do not attempt to age date the populations of the 1213–0017 galaxies.

However, we can still study the stellar content of the spectroscopically old 1213–0017 galaxies by comparing the strength of these breaks with old populations in the local Universe. The spectra of R8 and R10 are barely amenable to this line of investigation, but the S/N of R1’s spectrum is too low so we exclude it. The standard indices for measuring these breaks, 2609/2660 and 2828/2921 from Fanelli et al. (1990), are too narrow for our spectra: these use $``$25 Å wide bandpasses, meaning they include only 2–3 spectral resolution elements for our data. Instead, we use our own broader custom indices, W2640 and W2900. We also measure the moderate-bandwidth $`26003000`$ index of Fanelli et al. (1990) to track the UV continuum color. These are all calculated in the standard fashion, from the ratio of the fluxes in blue and red bandpasses and expressed in magnitudes:

$$\mathrm{Index}2.5\times \mathrm{log}_{10}\left[\frac{\overline{F_\lambda }(\mathrm{blue})}{\overline{F_\lambda }(\mathrm{red})}\right],$$
(1)
where $`\overline{F_\lambda }`$ is the average flux density in the bandpasses. Objects with stronger breaks have larger values for the indices. The red bandpass of W2640 covers the entire top-hat feature redward of the 2640 Å break and ends before the Fe+Cr absorption at 2745 Å; the blue bandpass has the same width and includes Fe II $`\lambda `$2609 absorption and part of the broad BL $`\lambda `$2538 feature (e.g., see Ponder et al., 1998). The blue bandpass of W2900 spans the Mg II $`\lambda `$2800 and Mg I $`\lambda `$2852 absorption, and the red bandpass is chosen to have the same width. Definitions and measurements of the standard indices and our custom ones are listed in Table 2.

Figure 11 plots the results juxtaposed against individual main-sequence stars (Fanelli et al., 1992), local old spheroids (Ponder et al., 1998), and the $`z=1.552`$ galaxy LBDS 53W091. The UV indices of R8 and R10 are consistent with local populations, though the W2640 strengths of R8 and R10 differ, with the former having a weaker 2640 Å break than even the local elliptical sample. Also, the two galaxies have different $`26003000`$ colors, with R8 lying closer to the metal-poor local populations, which have bluer mid-UV colors. The similar break amplitudes of LBDS 53W091 and R10 suggest these two galaxies are comparably old. If the analysis of 53W091’s spectrum is correct, its inferred age is barely compatible with present cosmological parameters, even with the assumption of solar metallicity to reduce the inferred age (Spinrad et al., 1997). Therefore, R10 must have had a comparably high formation redshift, since the difference in look-back time is only 5% between $`z=1.55`$ and $`z=1.31`$, and also must have experienced little or no recent star-formation.

For the local populations, the offset of the ellipticals from the stars and globular clusters in plots of the 2640 Å break versus $`26003000`$ color was noticed by Ponder et al. (1998), who suggested it was due to the hot UV-excess (UVX) population in elliptical galaxies. The UVX is thought to originate from post-main sequence stars, though its specific origin remains uncertain (O’Connell, 1999). Interestingly, galaxy R8 does appear to be more consistent with the local ellipticals than the local non-UVX populations which might suggest a hot component in R8. If this could be confirmed for this galaxy and other high-redshift ellipticals, a detailed study of their UV spectra might uncover the origin of the UVX emission, since the potential UVX candidates evolve on different time scales (e.g., Brown et al., 1998; Yi et al., 1999b). However, ongoing star formation, even just a small amount by mass, can greatly brighten a galaxy’s UV flux, thereby complicating such an analysis.

To summarize, comparison of the rest-frame UV spectra of R1, R8, and R10 shows a real scatter in their stellar content even though their observed $`K`$-band fluxes, which should roughly trace galaxy mass, are within a factor of two of each other. This may reflect differences in their star formation and/or merging histories. The UV color and break amplitudes of R8 and R10 are consistent with $`z=0`$ old stellar populations, though the data’s limited S/N and spectral resolution hinders any more detailed comparison, e.g., studying the weaker Mg II and Mg I absorption features. At a redshift of 1.3, we are observing these old galaxies when the Universe was only 30% of its present age. Therefore, improved data, both in S/N and spectral resolution, could probe the evolving composition of the oldest stellar populations from their relative youth at high redshift to their advanced age at $`z=0`$.

#### 4.2.3 Relation to Galaxy Morphology and Implications for Formation

The morphological results from the HST images are somewhat surprising if our suggestion that the 1213–0017 red galaxies contain old stars is correct. Most of the galaxies do not seem to be early-type ones but rather are disky or diffuse. Indeed, the one absorption-break galaxy with HST imaging, R10, looks like a compact edge-on disk — this galaxy does not resemble an elliptical galaxy morphologically even though it does so spectroscopically. These findings argue that not all old EROs are necessarily ellipticals, at least in their structure. This may reflect a fundamental ambiguity in identifying ellipticals at $`z>1`$ as compared to those at $`z=0`$: are elliptical galaxies properly defined by their morphological or spectrophotometric properties (c.f. Kauffmann et al., 1996; Schade et al., 1999)? If they formed by monolithic collapse at very high redshift, there should be no ambiguity. But in current scenarios of hierarchical galaxy formation, massive early-type galaxies form late ($`z12`$ depending on the cosmology) by agglomeration of smaller older sub-units, so the stars of the resulting elliptical are actually much older than the equilibrium morphology. Simulations (Kauffmann & Charlot, 1998) suggest these scenarios can still explain the homogeneity of the early-type cluster galaxy population out to $`z0.9`$ (e.g., Aragon-Salamanca et al., 1993; Kodama et al., 1998; Gladders et al., 1998; Stanford et al., 1998). However, it is at $`z1`$ when differences are predicted to become apparent, and there is little observational evidence in this regime due to the few number of $`z>1`$ clusters known. Spectroscopic follow-up of the remaining red galaxies in the 1213-0017 field combined with their HST images should prove very useful in addressing this issue.

## 5 Conclusions

We have found an overdensity of EROs in the field of the $`z=2.69`$ quasar QSO 1213–0017 (UM 485), about a factor of 16 overdense compared to the blank field ERO surface density and at least of factor of 6 overdense at the 95% confidence level. The optical/IR colors of the EROs and numerous other red galaxies in this field are consistent with those of passively-evolving elliptical galaxies at $`z>1`$. HST optical imaging shows a few of the red ($`K>5`$) galaxies seem to have early-type morphologies while the remainder are either disk galaxies or diffuse objects without any obvious core. Their near-IR morphologies are consistent with those observed in the optical, unlike in the case of the prototypical ERO HR 10. This suggests that the dust extinction in these galaxies is either relatively smooth or that reddening by dust is not a significant cause of the colors.

Follow-up Keck spectroscopy has measured redshifts for five red galaxies. Four lie at $`z1.31`$, and three of these have rest-frame UV absorption-line spectra similar to present-day elliptical galaxies, making this the most distant concentration of old galaxies spectroscopically confirmed to date. Including an Mg II absorber seen in the spectrum of the background quasar, there are five spectroscopic redshifts at $`z1.31`$ with a standard deviation of 1800 km s-1 and a full range of 3800 km s-1 in the mean rest frame.

A number of lines of evidence possibly suggest the red galaxies in this field delineate the presence of a massive high-redshift cluster. The ERO surface density is enhanced above blank field counts, and there are five spectroscopic redshifts close together. The reddest 1213–0017 galaxies, three of which have the spectra of early-type galaxies, are nearly as luminous and as red as the brightest Coma cluster ellipticals. The red galaxies also have a large angular extent on the sky, and a considerable velocity spread, suggesting dynamical youthfulness. An impression of youthfulness is also conveyed by the roughly filamentary distribution of the red galaxies on the sky.

Aside from the direct physical evidence, the presence of spectroscopically old EROs provides circumstantial support to the idea of a cluster. Elliptical galaxies in the local Universe, presumably the present-day counterparts of $`z>1`$ old EROs, are highly clustered and predominantly found in high density regions (e.g., Dressler, 1980). Such an analogy suggests that old EROs should be found with others of their ilk — this idea has yet to be fully explored. Since the hallmark of rich clusters is the presence of old ellipticals, this $`z=1.31`$ field may be one of the most distant rich cluster candidates to date. Moreover, regardless of whether this system is shown to be a genuine massive cluster, the concentration of EROs is likely a sign that this field is an uncommonly overdense region at high redshift, which warrants follow-up studies.

Further observations are needed to develop a full physical picture of this field. A much larger sample of redshifts, inferred from multicolor photometric redshifts and directly measured from deep spectroscopy, will reveal the number of luminous galaxies at this redshift. An expanded spectroscopic sample will also be valuable to measure the galaxy velocity distribution and to search for dynamical sub-structure. X-ray observations will allow us to look for hot intracluster gas, a sign of a deep gravitational potential, and also for mass sub-structure. This issue can also be addressed with radio observations to search for a Sunyaev-Zeldovich decrement.

Extending galaxy cluster studies to $`z>1`$ has special importance since current hierarchical formation theories predict massive galaxies assemble from smaller sub-units during this epoch (e.g., Kauffmann & Charlot, 1998), so we can potentially test these models by witnessing the formation process in situ. Measuring the high-redshift cluster abundance using wide-area surveys can provide strong tests of cosmological models (Eke et al., 1996; Bahcall et al., 1997). However, even before a large number of such clusters have been found, the few known to date are valuable sites to investigate the processes which drive the evolution of the oldest stellar populations, galaxies, and galaxy clusters. Furthermore, these clusters can also be used as testing grounds for $`z>1`$ cluster-search strategies, which by necessity are derived from extrapolating the known properties of lower-redshift clusters. It may be that we have to abandon some common precepts formed from studying local rich clusters in order to develop a complete understanding of high-redshift clusters and their constituent galaxies at an epoch of less than half the current age of the Universe.

Much of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. We are grateful to Hyron Spinrad, Aaron Barth, and Dave Burstein for discussions which improved this work. It is also a pleasure for us to acknowledge Rychard Bouwens for the stellar population model calculations, Adam Stanford for the redshifted Coma color-magnitude relation, Dave Thompson for results from the CADIS survey, and Jim Rose and Dave Burstein for providing UV spectra. We thank the NOAO staff for assistance with the Kitt Peak observing runs, and Greg Wirth, David Sprayberry, and Ron Quick for supporting the Keck/LRIS observations. Dan Stern and Andy Bunker provided helpful advice and software for the LRIS reductions. We also thank Emmanuel Bertin for distributing SExtractor, and Wayne Landsman and Jonathan Baker for contributing IDL routines. Jenny Graves helped with the initial near-IR reductions and photometry. This research has made use of the Digitized Sky Survey, NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service, and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). A. Dey acknowledges financial support from NASA grant HF-01089.01-97A. This work has also received support from HST NASA grant GO-06958.02-95A.


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# Cancellation of GLONASS signals from Radio Astronomy Data

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Many papers in the astronomical literature cite problems with interference from the Russian Global’naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (GLONASS) system of navigational satellites when trying to observe 1612 MHz OH spectral line emission. Galt (1991)  and Combrinck et al. (1994)  both present data demonstrating the damaging effect of GLONASS signals on astronomy data. Some reports have stated that up to 50% of all observations have had to be discarded . The scientific merits of OH spectral line observations are discussed in detail elsewhere ; however, there is no question that this is extremely valuable spectrum whose continued use is essential to radio astronomy.

One possible solution to the problem is regulation; this is being addressed within international organisations such as the ITU and URSI. However, regulation cannot be expected to recover the spectrum into which the GLONASS system already transmits. The solution most often employed by radio astronomers in dealing with unwanted signals is to put their telescopes in remote locations. However, when dealing with signals that emanate from Earth-orbiting satellites, that method obviously fails. The next most obvious solution is not to observe when interfering signals are present, or simply throw away affected data . Some “GLONASS aware” tools have been developed that allow dynamic scheduling observations in order to minimise interference . However, the strategy of avoidance results in the loss of valuable telescope time, which often amounts thousands of dollars per day, a better solution is desired.

Here we present a direct, technical solution to the problem. We have developed and demonstrated a parametric signal processing algorithm which identifies GLONASS signals present in the pre-detection, complex baseband telescope output, and removes them. This algorithm results in a high degree of suppression with negligible distortion of radio astronomical signals. We believe this approach can be applied to interference from the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and possibly other sources as well. This technique is presented in Section 3 of this paper. First (Section 2), we describe the properties of GLONASS that are relevant to the operation of the canceller. In Sections 4–5, we present experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach. Section 4 describes the procedure used to collect GLONASS-corrupted data; whereas Section 5 shows the results before and after application of the canceller. In section 6 we consider how this approach may be implemented on existing telescope systems.

## 2 Properties of GLONASS signals

GLONASS satellites transmit at frequencies between 1602–1616 MHz and have shared primary user status with radio astronomy for the 1610.6–1613.8 MHz band. There are 24 carriers spread over the 14 MHz band at intervals of 0.5625 MHz. The carrier is modulated by a pair of noise like, equal power, pseudo noise (PN) codes of 0.511 and 5.11 MHz. Figure 1. of Combrinck et al. (1994) shows time averaged spectra of these signals. The unfiltered sinc2 side lobes of these signals have relative power levels as high as $`25`$ dB extending out to 20 MHz either side of the main carrier in some cases. GLONASS satellites launched more recently do have some band-limiting filters.

GLONASS, despite its wide band spectrum, actually has a very simple structure. Consider the narrow band (0.511 MHz) GLONASS modulation. This signal is simply a sinusoidal carrier which experiences a phase shift of $`0^{}`$ or $`180^{}`$ every $`(0.511\text{MHz})^1`$. Each phase shift represents a modulation symbol, or chip. Each group of 511 chips represents a PN code, which is public knowledge, never changes, and is the same for every GLONASS satellite. GLONASS data bits are represented by changing the sign of a block of 10 PN codes, with 10 ms period. Parameters of the signal which are unknown when received are (1) the Doppler shift due to satellite motion, (2) the code phase, that is, the relative position within the 1 ms PN code period, and (3) the carrier phase, which rotates because the satellite is moving and the transmitter’s LO is not perfectly stable. However the carrier phase, the current value of the data bit, and the complex gain due to the antenna pattern can all be combined into a single unknown complex magnitude parameter. Thus three parameters are sufficient to describe the GLONASS signal with high accuracy.

Finally, we note that the modulation used by the course/acquisition (C/A) mode of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) is very similar to modulation used in the GLONASS 0.511 MHz transmission. The main differences are longer code (1023 chips) and higher chip rate (1.023 MHz); also, all GPS satellites transmit on the same centre frequency, but with different (but known) PN codes. Thus, techniques which are effective against 0.511 MHz GLONASS modulation may be effective against GPS C/A transmissions as well.

## 3 CANCELLATION ALGORITHM

### 3.1 Theory

Our technique for suppressing GLONASS signals in radio astronomy data is based on parametric signal modelling. Recall that the GLONASS signal can be described using a model consisting of just three parameters: Doppler, code phase, and complex magnitude. Given a block of data containing a GLONASS signal, one can then estimate the parameters. Given the parameters, it is possible to synthesise a noise-free copy of the GLONASS signal. This copy is then subtracted from the telescope output to achieve the suppression. This procedure is illustrated in Figure 1.

The parametric solution proceeds on two time scales. Doppler frequency and code phase are difficult to estimate, but change slowly. Complex magnitude, on the other hand, is simple to estimate, and changes quickly. Our approach is to first acquire the GLONASS signal. This involves a joint search over the possible Doppler frequencies and the code phases. For each Doppler/code phase pair, a complex baseband (zero-IF) version of the signal is cross-correlated with the PN sequence. The correct Doppler/code phase pair is the one which maximises the magnitude of the cross-correlation. Although tedious, this is a simple procedure, and is essentially the same acquisition procedure used by hand held GPS receivers. Once acquired, the Doppler and code phase can be tracked simply by sensing the drift in the correlation peak and adjusting the Doppler and code phase parameters accordingly. It appears that the Doppler and code phase estimates can be frozen for at least 0.1s between updates without any significant effect on the results.

Once the signal is acquired, we estimate the complex magnitude by cross-correlating the time- and frequency-aligned PN code with the complex zero-IF representation of the GLONASS signal. The magnitude and phase of the cross-correlation then represents the desired complex gain. The complex gain is expected to change quickly, so this procedure must be updated often. In the example presented below, the complex gain update rate is 128 $`\mu s`$, using 1024 samples at 8 Msamples per second (conversion to a complex baseband signal has halved the sample rate).

Given the Doppler frequency, code phase, and complex magnitude, one can then synthesise a noise-free estimate of the GLONASS signal. However, it has been found by experience that better cancellation is achieved by low-pass filtering the zero-IF version of the synthesised GLONASS signal before subtraction from the telescope output. This models the real-world low-pass effect which smoothes discontinuities in band limited signals. This also has the desirable effect of suppressing the high-order side lobes of the synthesised signal, which may not be accurately represented by the proposed signal model. A suitable filter was found to be a 32-tap finite impulse response (FIR) filter based on the Hamming window, with cutoff frequency equal to $`0.05F_S`$ at $`F_S=8`$ MSPS. Such a filter can be obtained using the MATLAB command fir1(32,0.1).

### 3.2 Implementation

The results presented below were obtained using non-real-time post-processing software, written in MATLAB. On a 400MHz pentium the processing presently runs at 1000 times real time. The MATLAB source code is freely available from the authors. Any practical system would, of course, require real time implementation. The maturity of GPS technology means that the techniques and hardware for the acquisition of GLONASS and GPS signal parameters are well developed. The design of the signal modulators in the satellites is also known. With the knowledge of these two areas a practical real time implementation is within reach and is discussed in Section 6.

## 4 DATA COLLECTION

The astronomy data used in testing these algorithms is a single linear polarisation, 4-bit data stream from each antenna of the 6x22m antenna, CSIRO Australia Telescope Compact Array at Narrabri in Australia. The data was 4-bit sampled at 16MHz and recorded on an S2 recorder. The resulting 8MHz bandpass centred on 1610 MHz was wide enough to include signals from GLONASS-69 at $``$1609 MHz, an OH maser source (IRAS 1731-33) at $``$1612 MHz and some flat spectrum. The data were then extracted using the S2TCI system and demultiplexed. More details on this dataset and others that are freely available for conducting these kind of experiments are in reports by Smegal et al. and Bell et al.. The algorithm works on a single polarisation data stream from one antenna only. However, data from a second antenna were also used in cross correlations as a test of how well the GLONASS signals were removed.

## 5 RESULTS TO DATE

The results so far are encouraging, with GLONASS narrow band signals being effectively removed in a way that is non toxic to astronomy signals. Figure 2 (left plot, top curve) shows a spectrum of the raw data, with test tones added in software. The bottom curve shows the same 0.1s ($`1.6\times 10^6`$ samples) of data with cancellation technique applied, with no apparent GLONASS signals left. There is an OH maser source at $``$1612 MHz. The top two curves in the right plot of Figure 2 show a blow up of this region. The bottom curve in the same plot shows the difference multiplied by a factor of 1000, indicating that no damage has been done in the spectral region of the OH source.

In order to examine the toxicity of this algorithm in the same frequency range as the GLONASS signal we added a test tone to the data before the cancellation was applied and examined how it was affected by the processing. The left plot of Figure 3 shows the result of subtracting the test tone again, after the cancellation. There is no evidence that the test tone has been affected by the cancellation. However, there is a small spike left right under the middle of the GLONASS signal, that is unrelated to the test tones. This seems to be a result of some break through, or leakage of the GLONASS carrier signal from the GLONASS imbalance in the GLONASS phase modulator. It should be possible to model and remove this as well, but we have not addressed that yet.

A more sensitive test of the supression is to cross correlate with signals from another antenna. The Right plot of Figure 3 show some cross correlations. The top curve is the cross correlation of raw data from two antennas. The bottom curve is the cross correlation of raw data from one antenna and data with GLONASS cancelled from data from another antenna. There are some extra ripples here that are not apparent in the other spectra, suggesting that there are some inaccuracies in the algorithm that need further investigation. The majority of the signal seen in this cross correlation is probably due to the GLONASS wide band signal, which we have not tried to suppress yet.

The addition and subtraction of test tones give us some indication of how toxic the algorithm is to astronomy signals. However, astronomy signals are not coherent sine waves, but are more like band limited noise in the case of spectral lines and wide band noise in the case of continuum sources. We replaced the test tones with some synthetic band limited noise, added it before the cancellation and subtracted it again after. As shown in Figure 4 the band limited noise is not affected by the cancellation algorithm, down to a part in 1000, in other words, we have achieved 30 dBs of dynamic range in the supression. Processing with and without the presence of an astronomy sources make very little difference to the effectiveness of the cancellation.

## 6 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS

The carrier break through described earlier needs to be modelled and cancelled. While we have not investigated this carefully yet, we believe this should be possible. We do not know the cause of the ripples in the cross correlation spectra and some more investigation there may lead to an improvement in the algorithm. At present we have modelled the band limiting filters of the GLONASS transmission system by a low-pass filter when the signal is centered on zero-IF. This is limiting the accuracy with which we estimate the GLONASS spectrum and therefore possibly limiting the cancellation. We aim to either obtain details of the band limiting filters used on the GLONASS transmission system, or use the existing data to estimate them.

Note that both GPS and GLONASS have in-band secondary channels that are spread 10 times wider, and therefore have power spectral density about 10 times weaker. This secondary channel for GPS and GLONASS is much harder to deal with, because the PN codes are more complex and may not be completely known. We do need to find a way to mitigate against these signals, because they do still cause substantial problems for radio astronomy.

In addition to GLONASS and GPS, many other satellite systems have well-specified modulation and coding schemes. This opens up the possibility of removing these other classes of signals using digital signal processing. The techniques described here will be useful for some others, but not all. At a recent meeting a wide range of interference mitigation techniques applicable to many different undesired signals were presented and discussed.

The usefulness of the method presented in this paper must ultimately be shown by conducting astronomy in the presence of GLONASS or GPS. Ideally the astronomy results with and without interference present would be indistinguishable. The use of recorded data and post processing is useful for demonstrating the method. But with processing currently running at one 1/1000 real time the amount of astronomy that can be demonstrated is very limited. It is therefore desirable to explore the use of dedicated hardware to achieve real time processing of the signal.

The most comprehensive approach is to build a complete receiver that incorporates the interference cancellation method described in this paper. This is the approach that must be taken in designing new interference resistant receivers but currently the best option is to build an ’add on’ to existing receivers. The problem with this method is that the quantiser in current receivers is designed for adequate performance when processing noise like signals. Typically a 1 or 2 bit quantiser is used. Techniques like adaptive noise cancellation will cause the number of bits needed to represent the signal to grow when the interference is suppressed. For example, consider an interferer whose peak amplitude is equivalent to one eighth of the least significant bit in the quantiser and assume that 2 bits can accurately represent the interference. To generate an interference free estimate of the signal it is necessary to subtract the estimate of the interferer from the signal. In doing this, the number of bits needed to represent the signal grows by 4 lower order bits. The signal now has too many bits to be processed by receivers normally used for radioastronomy. The solution to this problem is to form auto and cross correlations of the measured signal and the estimate of the interference. If the estimate e(t) and the interference i(t) are related to each other by a linear transfer function then in frequency domain this can be written as I(f) = H(f)E(f) where H(f) is the frequency domain transfer function.

In this context the astronomy signal can be considered to noise. The system can be redrawn as

where o(t) is the wanted astronomy signal plus interference. The cross-spectrum method can now be used to estimate the transfer function H(f) . If the astronomy signal a(t) is uncorrelated with i(t) then H(f) equal to the ratio of the cross-spectrum $`S_{oe}(f)`$ between o(t) and e(t) and the power spectrum $`S_{ee}(f)`$ of e(t).

$`H(f)=S_{oe}(f)/S_{ee}(f)`$

The power spectrum $`S_{aa}(f)`$ of a(t) is now equal to:

$`S_{aa}(f)=S_{oo}(f)|H(f)|^2.S_{ee}(f)`$

Thus measurement of the power spectrum of a(t) and e(t) plus the cross spectrum of the two gives enough information to derive the power spectrum of the uncorrupted astronomical signal. These spectra can be obtained from the auto and cross correlations of the two signal. Correlators used for astronomy normally process at most 2-bit data. Straight 2-bit sampling may not be sufficient to accurately represent the estimated GLONASS/GPS signal. The addition of dither and the use of noise shaped oversampling should solve this problem. The hardware itself will internally generate a multi-bit accurate representation of the interferer.

The hardware used to synthesise the baseband GLONASS or GPS is comparatively simple and easy to emulate in an FPGA. The main difficulty is the estimation of and tracking of signal phase and amplitude. This task is best left to software. Data needed to perform this task are correlations between the input and the current estimate of the interferer. If a reasonable initial estimate of the interferer has been found then very few correlations are needed to maintain tracking of carrier phase, carrier Doppler and code phase. The hardware could also be used to generate these correlations. The operations performed by the hardware are:

1. Generate the carrier digitally with adjustable carrier phase and Doppler.
2. Generate the GLONASS/GPS modulation with adjustable code phase
3. Modulate the carrier with the GLONASS code. This gives an unscaled ’noise free’ estimate of the interference.
4. Generate the zero delay and $`\pm 1/2`$ chip correlations between the input signal and the ’noise free’ estimate.
5. Scale the magnitude of the ’noise free’ estimate to match the interference.
6. Optionally delay data and estimate. This allows the magnitude and phase corrections to be applied to the estimate used in generating the corrections. This extra item is needed to fully emulate the current software. In practice it may be unnecessary.

This hardware removes most of the intensive tasks from software and leaves the software to monitor the correlations. From this monitoring the software then needs to generate updates for the carrier phase, carrier Doppler, code phase and amplitude. With these updates the output of the hardware is a ’noise free’ estimate of the interference.

### Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge discussions with and help in obtaining data from Ron Ekers, Rick Smegal, Peter Hall, Bob Sault, Matthew Bailes, Willem van Stratten, Frank Briggs, Mike Kesteven, Warwick Wilson, Dick Ferris