Self Calibrated Galaxy Groups from the DESI DR1 Bright Galaxy Survey

arXiv:2610.20919 · astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO · Submitted 2026-10-14 · Read on arXiv

astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO

Submitted: 2026-10-14

Updated: 2026-10-14

Comments: 32 pages, 26 Figures, submitted to ApJ. See https://ianw89.github.io/catalogs.html or https://data.desi.lbl.gov/doc/releases/dr1/#value-added-catalogs to acquire the catalog

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: We present a galaxy group catalog built from Data Release 1 of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Bright Galaxy Survey, using the Self Calibrated Group Finder.

Abstract

We present a galaxy group catalog built from Data Release 1 of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Bright Galaxy Survey, using the Self Calibrated Group Finder. The algorithm uses clustering data from the observed sample to calibrate the Group Finder's free parameters, rather than simulations. The catalog contains 2,229,741 galaxies from 2680 deg squared of sky with 3-pass coverage and r-band fluxes 19.5. The catalog classifies all galaxies in the flux-limited sample as centrals or satellites and estimates host dark matter halo masses. We show the satellite fraction f sat, luminosity halo mass relation, stellar halo mass relation and halo occupation distributions (HODs) from the catalog. We find these non-parametric HODs can be fit by standard HOD models, with satellite power-law index α values around 0.75 for star-forming galaxies and around 1.1 for quiescent objects. In agreement with recent results, we find that the quenched fraction of central galaxies depends mostly on halo mass and is nearly independent of central galaxy stellar mass for galaxies more massive than 10 10.3 M h-1 and halos more massive than 10 12.2 M h-1. In an appendix, we introduce a new Hybrid Nearest Neighbor (HNN) technique to mitigate systematics from fiber incompleteness. HNN uses photometric redshifts and multiple on-sky neighbors to assign redshifts to unobserved targets. Calibrated on DESI Survey Validation 3 data, our technique yields correct redshifts about 50% of the time and produces unbiased halo occupation statistics.

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