The NIKA2 cosmological legacy survey at 2 mm: catalogs, colors, redshift distributions, and implications for deep surveys

Abstract

Millimeter galaxy surveys are particularly effective in detecting dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshift. While such observations are typically conducted at ~1mm, some studies suggest that 2mm may be better suited for selecting sources at even higher redshifts. We use the unprecedented 2mm data from the N2CLS, together with the SIDES simulation, to study and interpret the statistical properties of 2mm-selected galaxies. We use the N2CLS robust sample at 2mm, which contains 25 sources in the deep GOODS-N field and 90 sources in the wide COSMOS. The sources are matched with the N2CLS 1.2mm sources, the ancillary 850um sources, and redshift catalogs to study the colors and redshift distributions. We also produce end-to-end simulations based on SIDES and the observed N2CLS detector timelines to interpret the data. We find a mean S2/S1.2 color of 0.222$\pm$0.008 with a standard deviation of 0.070$\pm$0.010. We measure a mean redshift of $3.6\pm0.3$ in GOODS-N, which is marginally higher than expectations from SIDES ($2.9\pm0.2$) because of an overdensity at $z\sim5.2$, and $3.2\pm0.2$ in COSMOS, which agrees with the $3.2\pm0.2$ predicted by SIDES. We also show that the observed S2/S1.2 colors exhibit a weak dependence with redshift but a large dispersion, which limits its efficiency to select high-z sources. Finally, we studied the nine 2mm sources not detected at 1.2mm, and found that two of them are radiogalaxies, one is a z~2 galaxy, and the remaining six are compatible with the expected number of spurious detections. The N2CLS survey shows no evidence for any exotic 2mm-only galaxy population. Using SIDES, we show that 2mm samples have a higher mean redshift compared to 1.2mm because they miss z~2 dusty galaxies. Finally, we discuss the efficiency of single-dish and interferometric blind surveys to build samples of high-z dusty galaxies.