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We describe the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) Survey, a wide-field, near-IR selected spectrophotometric redshift survey with the Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) on Magellan-Baade. By defining a flux-limited sample of galaxies in Spitzer \emph{IRAC} $3.6\mu$m imaging of SWIRE fields, the CSI Survey efficiently traces the stellar mass of average galaxies to $z\sim 1.5$. This first paper provides an overview of the survey selection, observations, processing of the photometry and spectrophotometry. We also describe the processing of the data: new methods of fitting synthetic templates of spectral energy distributions are used to derive redshifts, stellar masses, emission line luminosities, and coarse information on recent star-formation. Our unique methodology for analyzing low-dispersion spectra taken with multilayer prisms in \emph{IMACS}, combined with panchromatic photometry from the ultraviolet to the IR, has yielded high quality redshifts for 43,347 galaxies in our first 5.3 degs$^2$ of the SWIRE XMM-LSS field. We use three different approaches to estimate our redshift errors and find robust agreement. Over the full range of $3.6\mu$m fluxes of our selection, we find typical redshift uncertainties of $\sigma_z/(1+z) \la 0.015$. In comparisons with previously published spectroscopic redshifts we find scatters of $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.011$ for galaxies at $0.7\le z\le 0.9$, and $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.014$ for galaxies at $0.9\le z\le 1.2$. For galaxies brighter and fainter than $i=23$ mag, we find $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.008$ and $\sigma_z/(1+z) = 0.022$, respectively. Notably, our low-dispersion spectroscopy and analysis yields comparable redshift uncertainties and success rates for both red and blue galaxies, largely eliminating color-based systematics that can seriously bias observed dependencies of galaxy evolution on environment.
We present the first measurement of the evolution of the galaxy group stellar mass function (GrSMF) to redshift z>1 and low masses (M>10^12 Msun). Our results are based on early data from the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) Survey, utilizing low-resolution spectra and broadband optical/near-IR photometry to measure redshifts for a 3.6um selected sample of 37,000 galaxies over a 5.3 deg^2 area to z~1.2. Employing a standard friends-of-friends algorithm for all galaxies more massive than log(M_star/Msun)=10.5, we find a total of ~4000 groups. Correcting for spectroscopic incompleteness (including slit collisions), we build cumulative stellar mass functions for these groups in redshift bins at z>0.35, comparing to the z=0 and z>0 mass functions from various group and cluster samples. Our derived mass functions match up well with z>0.35 X-ray selected clusters, and strong evolution is evident at all masses over the past 8 Gyr. Given the already low level of star formation activity in galaxies at these masses, we therefore attribute most of the observed growth in the GrSMF to group-group and group-galaxy mergers, in accordance with qualitative notions of hierarchical structure formation. Given the factor 3-10 increase in the number density of groups and clusters with M_\star>10^12 Msun since z=1 and the strong anticorrelation between star formation activity and environmental density, this late-time growth in group-sized halos may therefore be an important contributor to the structural and star-formation evolution of massive galaxies over the past 8 Gyr.
Since z~1, the stellar mass density locked in low mass groups and clusters has grown by a factor of ~8. Here we make the first statistical measurements of the stellar mass content of low mass X-ray groups at 0.5<z<1, enabling the calibration of stellar-to-halo mass scales for wide-field optical and infrared surveys. Groups are selected from combined Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observations in the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS). These ultra-deep observations allow us to identify bona fide low mass groups at high redshift and enable measurements of their total halo masses. We compute aggregate stellar masses for these halos using galaxies from the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) spectroscopic redshift survey. Stars comprise ~3-4% of the total mass of group halos with masses 10^{12.8}<M200/Msun<10^{13.5} (about the mass of Fornax and 1/50th the mass of Virgo). Complementing our sample with higher mass halos at these redshifts, we find that the stellar-to-halo mass ratio decreases toward higher halo masses, consistent with other work in the local and high redshift universe. The observed scatter about the stellar-halo mass relation is ~0.25 dex, which is relatively small and suggests that total group stellar mass can serve as a rough proxy for halo mass. We find no evidence for any significant evolution in the stellar-halo mass relation since z<1. Quantifying the stellar content in groups since this epoch is critical given that hierarchical assembly leads to such halos growing in number density and hosting increasing shares of quiescent galaxies.