SHELA: The Spitzer HETDEX Exploratory Large Area Survey

We present an overview of our Spitzer Exploratory survey to obtain IRAC imaging in a 28 sq deg field with deep optical imaging lying within the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) Survey. Our goal is to explore the relationship between galaxy stellar mass, dark-matter halo mass, and environment during the important cosmic epoch (redshifts 2< z< 3) where the star formation and AGN activity in galaxies peak. The combination of HETDEX spectroscopy and deep IRAC and optical imaging in our program will provide a uniquely powerful dataset enabling these goals. Working in blind spectroscopic mode, HETDEX will obtain redshifts in this field for approximately 200,000 galaxies and map out the cosmic web at redshifts 1.9< z< 3.5, over a large comoving volume of approximately 0.2 Gpc 3, competitive with SDSS at low redshifts. This volume spans a broad range of environments within the …