The ATLAS3D project - I. A volume-limited sample of 260 nearby early-type galaxies: science goals and selection criteria

The ATLAS 3D project is a multiwavelength survey combined with a theoretical modelling effort. The observations span from the radio to the millimetre and optical, and provide multicolour imaging, two-dimensional kinematics of the atomic (H I), molecular (CO) and ionized gas (H, [O III] and [N I]), together with the kinematics and population of the stars (H, Fe5015 and Mg b), for a carefully selected, volume-limited (1.16 10 5 Mpc 3 ) sample of 260 early-type (elliptical E and lenticular S0) galaxies (ETGs). The models include semi-analytic, N-body binary mergers and cosmological simulations of galaxy formation. Here we present the science goals for the project and introduce the galaxy sample and the selection criteria. The sample consists of nearby (D < 42 Mpc, | -29 | < 35 , |b| > 15 ) morphologically selected ETGs extracted from a parent sample of 871 galaxies (8 per cent E, 22 per cent S0 and 70 per cent spirals) brighter than M K < -21.5 mag (stellar mass M 6 10 9 M ). We analyse possible selection biases and we conclude that the parent sample is essentially complete and statistically representative of the nearby galaxy population. We present the size-luminosity relation for the spirals and ETGs and show that the ETGs in the ATLAS 3D sample define a