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Description
The aim of this paper is to introduce the WIRCam Ultra Deep Survey (WUDS), a near-IR photometric survey carried out at the CFH Telescope in the field of the CFHTLS-D3 field (Groth Strip). WUDS includes four near-IR bands (Y, J, H and Ks) over a field of view of ~400arcmin^2^. The typical depth of WUDS data reaches between ~26.8 in Y and J, and ~26 in H and Ks (AB, 3{sigma} in 1.3" aperture), whereas the corresponding depth of the CFHTLS-D3 images in this region ranges between 28.6 and 29 in ugr, 28.2 in i and 27.1 in z (same S/N and aperture). The area and depth of this survey were specifically tailored to set strong constraints on the cosmic star formation rate and the luminosity function brighter or around L* in the z~6-10 redshift domain, although these data are also useful for a variety of extragalactic projects. This first paper is intended to present the properties of the public WUDS survey in details: catalog building, completeness and depth, number counts, photometric redshifts, and global properties of the galaxy population. We have also concentrated on the selection and characterization of galaxy samples at z~[4.5-7] in this field. For these purposes, we include an adjacent shallower area of ~1260arcmin^2^ in this region, extracted from the WIRCam Deep Survey (WIRDS), and observed in J, H and Ks bands. UV luminosity functions were derived at z~5 and z~6 taking advantage from the fact that WUDS covers a particularly interesting regime at intermediate luminosities, which allows a combined determination of M* and {PHI}* with increased accuracy. Our results on the luminosity function are consistent with a small evolution of both M* and {PHI}* between z=5 and z=6, irrespective of the method used to derive them, either photometric redshifts applied to blindly-selected dropout samples or the classical Lyman Break Galaxy color-preselected samples. Our results lend support to higher {PHI}* determinations at z=6 than usually reported. The selection and combined analysis of different galaxy samples at z>=7 will be presented in a forthcoming paper, as well as the evolution of the UV luminosity function between z~4.5 and 9. WUDS is intended to provide a robust database in the near-IR for the selection of targets for detailed spectroscopic studies, in particular for the EMIR/GTC GOYA Survey.
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