Deep Spectroscopic Redshift Surveys: with VLT-VIMOS: VVDS, zCOSMOS, VIPERS...

Olivier Le Fevre, Director
LAM Institute, France


Abstract:

Understanding galaxy and large scale structure formation and evolution  requires the observations of unbiased samples of galaxies in large volumes all along cosmic time. The multi-slit spectrograph VIMOS has been designed to do just that, and   has been the workhorse for deep surveys at the ESO-VLT since 2002. I will discuss some  of the key results which have been obtained on the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) and  the zCOSMOS survey, from which a clearer picture of galaxy evolution is emerging.  I will discuss the power of deep redshift surveys as a probe of the cosmological model, with expectations from the on-going VIPERS survey. I will conclude with a presentation of DIORAMAS , the next generation Multi-slit spectrograph under study for the ESO-EELT.