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The "VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey" (VIPERS) is an ongoing ESO Large Program to map in detail
the spatial distribution of normal galaxies over an unprecedented volume of the z~1 Universe.
VIPERS is using VIMOS at the VLT to measure 100,000 redshifts for galaxies with
red magnitude I(AB) brighter than 22.5 over an area of 24 square degrees. At this redshift, VIPERS
fills a unique niche in galaxy surveys, optimizing the combination of 5-band accurate photometry
from the CFHTLS with the multiplexing capability of VIMOS. A robust
color-color pre-selection
allows the survey to focus its measurements on the 0.5 < z < 1.2
redshift range, yielding an optimal combination of large volume (5 x
107 h-3 Mpc3) and high effective
spectroscopic sampling (> 50%). With these figures, the VIPERS
data set will be the z~1 equivalent of current state-of-the-art
"local" (z<0.2) surveys, allowing us to compare measurements
at these two different epochs on equal statistical footing.
VIPERS scientific investigations will focus on measurements of large-scale structure
and cosmological parameters at an epoch when the Universe was about
half its current age. At the same time, the survey will be
able to explore the ensemble properties of luminous galaxies,
groups, clusters and AGNs with unprecedented statistical accuracy at
these redshifts.
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