The ALHAMBRA (Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical) survey has observed 8 different regions of the sky, including sections of the COSMOS, DEEP2, ELAIS, GOODS-N, SDSS and Groth fields using a new photometric system with 20 optical, contiguous ∼300Å filters plus the JHKs bands. The filter system is designed to optimize the effective photometric redshift depth of the survey, while having enough wavelength resolution for the identification of faint emission lines. The observations, carried out with the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope using the wide field optical camera LAICA and the NIR instrument Omega-2000, represent a total of ∼700hrs of on-target science images. Here we present multicolor PSF-corrected photometry and photometric redshifts for ∼438,000 galaxies, detected in synthetic F 814W images. The catalogs are complete down to a magnitude I∼24.5AB and cover an effective area of 2.79 deg 2 . Photometric zeropoints were calibrated using stellar transformation equations and refined internally, using a new technique based on the highly robust photometric redshifts measured for emission line galaxies. We calculate Bayesian photometric redshifts with the BPZ2.0 code, obtaining a precision of δ z /(1+z s )=1% for I<22.5 and δ z /(1+z s )=1.4% for 22.5=0.56 for I<22.5 AB and =0.86 for I<24.5 AB. Given its depth and small cosmic variance, ALHAMBRA is a unique dataset for galaxy evolution studies.

Here we describe the first results of the ALHAMBRA survey which provides cosmic tomography of the evolution of the contents of the Universe over most of Cosmic history. Our novel approach employs 20 contiguous, equal-width, medium-band filters covering from 3500Å to 9700Å, plus the standard JHK s near-infrared bands, to observe a total area of 4 square degrees on the sky. The -2optical photometric system has been designed to maximize the number of objects with accurate classification by Spectral Energy Distribution type and redshift, and to be sensitive to relatively faint emission features in the spectrum. The observations are being carried out with the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope using the wide field cameras in the optical, LAICA, and in the NIR, Omega-2000. The first data confirm that we are reaching the expected magnitude limits (for a total of 100 ksec integration time per pointing) of AB ≤ 25 mag (for an unresolved object, S/N = 5) in the optical filters from the blue to 8300Å, and from AB = 24.7 to 23.4 for the redder ones. The limit in the NIR, for a total of 15 ks exposure time per pointing, is (in the Vega system) K s ≈ 20 mag, H ≈ 21 mag, J≈ 22 mag. Some preliminary results are presented here to illustrate the capabilities of the ongoing survey. We expect to obtain accurate redshift values, ∆z/(1 + z) ≤ 0.03 for about 5 ×10 5 galaxies with I≤ 25 (60% completeness level), and z med = 0.74. This accuracy, together with the homogeneity of the selection function, will allow for the study of the redshift evolution of the large scale structure, the galaxy population and its evolution with redshift, the identification of clusters of galaxies, and many other studies, without the need for any further followup. It will also provide targets for detailed studies with 10m-class telescopes. Given its area, spectral coverage and its depth, apart from those main goals, the ALHAMBRA-Survey will also produce valuable data for galactic studies.

Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) provide a "standard ruler" of known physical length, making it one of the most promising probes of the nature of dark energy. The detection of BAO as an excess of power in the galaxy distribution at a certain scale requires measuring galaxy positions and redshifts. "Transversal" (or "angular") BAO measure the angular size of this scale projected in the sky and provide information about the angular distance. "Line-of-sight" (or "radial") BAO require very precise redshifts, but provide a direct measurement of the Hubble parameter at different redshifts, a more sensitive probe of dark energy. The main goal of this paper is to show that it is possible to obtain photometric redshifts with enough precision (σ z ) to measure BAO along the line of sight. There is a fundamental limitation as to how much one can improve the BAO -2measurement by reducing σ z . We show that σ z ∼ 0.003(1 + z) is sufficient: a much better precision will produce an oversampling of the BAO peak without a significant improvement on its detection, while a much worse precision will result in the effective loss of the radial information. This precision in redshift can be achieved for bright, red galaxies, featuring a prominent 4000Å break, by using a filter system comprising about 40 filters, each with a width close to 100Å, covering the wavelength range from ∼ 4000Å to ∼ 8000Å, supplemented by two broad-band filters similar to the SDSS u and z bands. We describe the practical implementation of this idea, a new galaxy survey project, PAU * , to be carried out with a telescope/camera combination with an etendue about 20 m 2 deg 2 , equivalent to a 2 m telescope equipped with a 6 deg 2 -FoV camera, and covering 8000 sq. deg. in the sky in four years. We expect to measure positions and redshifts for over 14 million red, early-type galaxies with L > L ⋆ and i AB 22.5 in the redshift interval 0.1 < z < 0.9, with a precision σ z < 0.003(1 + z). This population has a number density n 10 −3 Mpc −3 h 3 galaxies within the 9 (Gpc/h) 3 volume to be sampled by our survey, ensuring that the error in the determination of the BAO scale is not limited by shot-noise. By itself, such a survey will deliver precisions of order 5% in the dark-energy equation of state parameter w, if assumed constant, and can determine its time derivative when combined with future CMB measurements. In addition, PAU will yield high-quality redshift and low-resolution spectroscopy for hundreds of millions of other galaxies, including a very significant high-redshift population. The data set produced by this survey will have a unique legacy value, allowing a wide range of astrophysical studies.Subject headings: large-scale structure of universe -cosmological parameters * Physics of the Accelerating Universe (PAU): http://www.ice.cat/

Past surveys have revealed that the large-scale distribution of galaxies in the universe is far from random: it is highly structured over a vast range of scales. Surveys being currently undertaken and being planned for the next decades will provide a wealth of information about this structure. The ultimate goal must be not only to describe galaxy clustering as it is now, but also to explain how this arose as a consequence of evolutionary processes acting on the initial conditions that we see in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy data. In order to achieve this we need to build mathematically quantifiable descriptions of cosmic structure. Identifying where scaling laws apply and the nature of those scaling laws is an important part of understanding which physical mechanisms have been responsible for the organization of clusters of galaxies, superclusters, and the voids between them. Finding where these scaling laws are broken is equally important since this indicates the transition to different underlying physics. In describing scaling laws it is helpful to make analogies with fractals, mathematical constructs that can possess a wide variety of scaling properties. We must beware, however, of saying that the universe is a fractal on some range of scales: it merely exhibits a specific kind of fractal-like behavior on those scales. The richness of fractal scaling behavior is an important supplement to the usual battery of statistical descriptors. This article reviews the history of how we have learned about the structure of the universe and presents the data and methodologies that are relevant to an understanding of any scaling properties that structure may have. The ultimate goal is to have a complete understanding of how that structure emerged. We are getting close! CONTENTS

We present the results of the study of the morphology and galaxy content of the Sloan Great Wall (SGW), the richest galaxy system in the nearby Universe. We use the luminosity density field to determine superclusters in the SGW, and the 4th Minkowski functional V 3 and the morphological signature (the K 1 -K 2 shapefinders curve) to show the different morphologies of the SGW, from a single filament to a multibranching, clumpy planar system. We show that the richest supercluster in the SGW, SCl 126 and especially its core resemble a very rich filament, while another rich supercluster in the SGW, SCl 111, resembles a "multispider"-an assembly of high density regions connected by chains of galaxies. We study the substructure of individual galaxy populations determined by their color in these superclusters using Minkowski functionals and find that in the high density core of the SGW the clumpiness of red and blue galaxies is similar, but in the outskirts of superclusters the distribution of red galaxies is more clumpy than that of blue galaxies. At intermediate densities, the systems of blue galaxies have tunnels through them. We assess the statistical significance of our results using the halo model and smoothed bootstrap.We study the galaxy content and the properties of groups of galaxies in two richest superclusters of the SGW, paying special attention to bright red galaxies (BRGs) and to the first ranked galaxies in SGW groups. The BRGs are the nearby LRGs, they are mostly bright and red and typically reside in groups (several groups host 5 or more BRGs). About 1/3 of BRGs are spirals. The scatter of colors of elliptical BRGs is smaller than that of spiral BRGs. About half of BRGs and of first ranked galaxies in groups have large peculiar velocities. Groups with elliptical BRGs as their first ranked galaxies populate superclusters more uniformly than the groups, which have a spiral BRG as its first ranked galaxy.The galaxy and group content of the core of the supercluster SCl 126 shows several differences in comparison with the outskirts of this supercluster and with the supercluster SCl 111. Here groups with BRGs are richer and have larger velocity dispersions than groups with BRGs in the outskirts of this supercluster and in SCl 111. The fraction of those BRGs which do not belong to any group is the smallest here. In the core of the supercluster SCl 126 the fraction of red galaxies is larger than in the outskirts of this supercluster or in the supercluster SCl 111. Here the peculiar velocities of of the first ranked galaxies are larger than in the outskirts of this supercluster or in the supercluster SCl 111 and the peculiar velocities of elliptical BRGs are larger than those of spiral BRGs, while in the outskirts of this supercluster and in the supercluster SCl 111 the peculiar velocities of spiral BRGs are larger than those of elliptical BRGs.All that suggests that the formation history and evolution of individual neighbour superclusters in the SGW has been different, and the SGW is not a genuine physical str...