Overview

DEVILS will probe the intermediate redshift (0.3<z<1.0) epoch in unprecedented detail. Over the past two decades galaxy evolution surveys have focused on either well sampled, high completeness studies of the local Universe (i.e. SDSS, 2dFGRS, GAMA) or targeted deep, but small area and sparsely sampled, regions to probe the initial stages of galaxy evolution at z>1 (i.e. zCOSMOS-deep and VVDS-deep). However, it is the under-sampled epoch at intermediate redshifts where both galaxies and their host halos undergo significant coeval evolution, specifically in terms of the environmental effects on galaxies. It is not the processes occurring today which produce the fundamental relations observed by GAMA and SDSS, but the factors which drove galaxy evolution over the preceding 10 billion years.

In order to probe the formation of these relations, we require a complete analysis of both galaxies and their environments. This can only be achieved using the highly complete spectroscopic samples required to identify cluster, group, pair, filament and void structures as well as the galaxies that reside within them. DEVILS will achieve this by combining a deep, highly complete (>95%), magnitude limited (Y-mag<21.2) spectroscopic sample with extensive multi-wavelength imaging across a broad range of wavelengths. The survey is designed to detect M^∗_z=0 (10^10.7M_⊙) galaxies to z = 1, major merger satellites of M^∗_z=0 galaxies to z = 0.7, and 10¹³M_⊙ groups to z = 0.7. DEVILS will probe the evolution of dark matter and the impact of environment on galaxy evolution over an extensive ∼ 8Gyr baseline. This unique survey will also provide a diverse legacy resource for galaxy evolution science. DEVILS will open up new avenues of discovery, focusing on two key science projects: