Astron. Astrophys. 325, 954-960 (1997)

5. Summary

We have presented the main characteristics of the ESO Slice Project, a redshift survey limited to in a region near the South Galactic Pole.

This survey, consisting of 3342 galaxies with reliable redshift determination, provides a large data-base of galaxy spectra which will be useful to study the spectral properties of galaxies and will constitute a reference for the next generation of larger and deeper redshift surveys. Preliminary analysis of a large sub-sample of 2550 galaxies shows a strong anti-correlation between the fraction of galaxies with an o2 equivalent width greater than 20 Å and the absolute magnitude. This fraction of actively star-forming galaxies increases from a few percent for the brightest galaxies up to about 40% for the galaxies fainter than  .

Finally, this survey allows the study of the large-scale structure at intermediate depth (). The most outstanding feature in the redshift distribution is a very significant peak at   Mpc . Similar peaks, at the same distance, are detected in other surveys in the same region of the sky. We conclude that there is evidence for the presence of a large bidimensional structure perpendicular to the line of sight. The minimum size of this structure would be of the order of   Mpc , comparable with the size of the Great Wall.

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1997

Online publication: April 28, 1998

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