The Herschel ATLAS is the largest open-time key project that will be carried out on the Herschel Space Observatory. It will survey 570 deg(2) of the extragalactic sky, 4 times larger than all the other Herschel extragalactic surveys combined, in five far-infrared and submillimeter bands. We describe the survey, the complementary multiwavelength data sets that will be combined with the Herschel data, and the six major science programs we are undertaking. Using new models based on a previous submillimeter survey of galaxies, we present predictions of the properties of the ATLAS sources in other wave bands

Observations have evidenced that passively evolving massive galaxies at high redshift are much more compact than local galaxies with the same stellar mass. We argue that the observed strong evolution in size is directly related to the quasar feedback, which removes huge amounts of cold gas from the central regions in a Salpeter time, inducing an expansion of the stellar distribution. The new equilibrium configuration, with a size increased by a factor >~ 3, is attained after ~ 40 dynamical times, corresponding to ~ 2 Gyr. This means that massive galaxies observed at z >~ 1 will settle on the Fundamental Plane by z ~ 0.8-1. In less massive galaxies (M_star <~ 2 10^10 M_sun), the nuclear feedback is subdominant, and the mass loss is mainly due to stellar winds. In this case, the mass loss timescale is longer than the dynamical time and results in adiabatic expansion that may increase the effective radius by a factor of up to ~ 2 in 10 Gyr, although a growth by a factor of ~ 1.6 occurs within the first 0.5 Gyr. Since observations are focused on relatively old galaxies, with ages >~ 1 Gyr, the evolution for smaller galaxies is more difficult to perceive. Significant evolution of velocity dispersion is predicted for both small and large galaxies.

Exploiting the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey Science Demonstration Phase survey data, we have determined the luminosity functions (LFs) at rest-frame wavelengths of 100 and 250 μm and at several redshifts z 1, for bright submillimeter galaxies with star formation rates (SFRs) 100 M _☉ yr^–1. We find that the evolution of the comoving LF is strong up to z ≈ 2.5, and slows down at higher redshifts. From the LFs and the information on halo masses inferred from clustering analysis, we derived an average relation between SFR and halo mass (and its scatter). We also infer that the timescale of the main episode of dust-enshrouded star formation in massive halos (M _H 3 × 10¹² M _☉) amounts to ~7 × 10⁸ yr. Given the SFRs, which are in the range of 10²-10³ M _☉ yr^–1, this timescale implies final stellar masses of the order of 10¹¹-10¹² M _☉. The corresponding stellar mass function matches the observed mass function of passively evolving galaxies at z 1. The comparison of the statistics for submillimeter and UV-selected galaxies suggests that the dust-free, UV bright phase is 10² times shorter than the submillimeter bright phase, implying that the dust must form soon after the onset of star formation. Using a single reference spectral energy distribution (SED; the one of the z ≈ 2.3 galaxy SMM J2135-0102), our simple physical model is able to reproduce not only the LFs at different redshifts >1 but also the counts at wavelengths ranging from 250 μm to ≈1 mm. Owing to the steepness of the counts and their relatively broad frequency range, this result suggests that the dispersion of submillimeter SEDs of z > 1 galaxies around the reference one is rather small.

While the selection of strongly lensed galaxies (SLGs) with 500 μm flux density S ₅₀₀ > 100 mJy has proven to be rather straightforward, for many applications it is important to analyze samples larger than the ones obtained when confining ourselves to such a bright limit. Moreover, only by probing to fainter flux densities is it possible to exploit strong lensing to investigate the bulk of the high-z star-forming galaxy population. We describe HALOS (the Herschel-ATLAS Lensed Objects Selection), a method for efficiently selecting fainter candidate SLGs, reaching a surface density of 1.5-2 deg^–2, i.e., a factor of about 4-6 higher than that at the 100 mJy flux limit. HALOS will allow the selection of up to ~1000 candidate SLGs (with amplifications μ 2) over the full H-ATLAS survey area. Applying HALOS to the H-ATLAS Science Demonstration Phase field ( 14.4 deg²) we find 31 candidate SLGs, whose candidate lenses are identified in the VIKING near-infrared catalog. Using the available information on candidate sources and candidate lenses we tentatively estimate a 72% purity of the sample. As expected, the purity decreases with decreasing flux density of the sources and with increasing angular separation between candidate sources and lenses. The redshift distribution of the candidate lensed sources is close to that reported for most previous surveys for lensed galaxies, while that of candidate lenses extends to redshifts substantially higher than found in the other surveys. The counts of candidate SLGs are also in good agreement with model predictions. Even though a key ingredient of the method is the deep near-infrared VIKING photometry, we show that H-ATLAS data alone allow the selection of a similarly deep sample of candidate SLGs with an efficiency close to 50%; a slightly lower surface density ( 1.45 deg^–2) can be reached with a ~70% efficiency.

We build a large sample of Seyfert 2 galaxies (Sy2s) with both optical spectropolarimetric and X-ray data available, in which 29 of the Sy2s have a detection of polarized broad emission lines (PBLs) and 25 do not. We find that for luminous Sy2s with L[O III] > 10⁴¹ ergs s^-1, sources with PBLs have smaller X-ray absorption column densities in comparison to those without PBLs (at a 92.3% confidence level): most of the Sy2s with N_H < 10^23.8 cm^-2 show PBLs (86%; 12 out of 14), while the fraction is much smaller for sources with heavier obscuration (54%; 15 out of 28). The confidence level of the difference in absorption bounces up to 99.1% when using the thickness ("T") ratio (F_{2-10 keV}/F[O III]) as an indicator. We rule out observation or selection bias as the origin for the difference. Our results, for the first time with high statistical confidence, show that, in additional to the activity of the nuclei, the nuclear obscuration also plays an important role in the visibility of PBLs in Sy2s. These results can be interpreted in the framework of the unified model. We can reach these results in the unified model if (1) the absorption column density is higher at large inclinations and (2) the scattering region is obscured at large inclinations.