VIMOS VLT Deep Survey final data release

They were used to establish the redshift measurements reliability, to assess completeness in the VVDS sample, and to provide a weighting scheme taking the survey selection function into account. We describe the main properties of the VVDS samples, and the VVDS is compared to other spectroscopic surveys in the literature. In total we have obtained spectroscopic redshifts for 34594 galaxies, 422 type-I AGN, and 12430 Galactic stars.

The survey enabled identifying galaxies up to very high redshifts with 4669 redshifts in 1<=z_spec_<=2, 561 in 2<=z_spec_<=3, and 468 with z_spec_>3, and specific populations like Lyman-{alpha} emitters were identified out to z=6.62. We show that the VVDS occupies a unique place in the parameter space defined by area, depth, redshift coverage, and number of spectra. The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey provides a comprehensive survey of the distant universe, covering all epochs since z~6, or more than 12Gyr of cosmic time, with a uniform selection, which is the largest such sample to date.

A wealth of science results derived from the VVDS have shed new light on the evolution of galaxies and AGN and on their distribution in space over this large cosmic time. The VVDS further demonstrates that large deep spectroscopic redshift surveys over all these epochs in the distant Universe are a key tool to observational cosmology. To enhance the legacy value of the survey, a final public release of the complete VVDS spectroscopic redshift sample is available at cesam.lam.fr/vvds .