Involved people at OAB: Cappi, Merighi, Mignoli, Stirpe, Zamorani, Zucca.
The ESO Slice Project (ESP) is a galaxy redshift survey performed at the
ESO 3.6m telescope, which produced a complete sample of 
galaxy
spectra with 
over an area of 
square degrees: the
project (P.I. G.Vettolani) is the result of an international collaboration in
which the Bologna Observatory is deeply involved
It is worth recalling the following results, obtained from the ESP survey:
-- The shape and the normalization of the field galaxy luminosity function were determined over an unbiased volume of the Universe, finding an excess of faint galaxies.
-- Almost half of the ESP galaxies present spectra with emission lines, which allowed the analysis of star formation properties in the local Universe.
-- The spatial analysis of the ESP galaxies provided information about
the topology of the Universe, excluding the hypothesis of a fractal
distribution, and about its clustering properties. Moreover, a large
underdense region was found for distances <140 h
Mpc.
-- Clustering properties were analyzed in detail, measuring both the correlation function and the power spectrum of the ESP galaxy distribution. These estimators were derived with various methods and compared with the literature results obtained for brighter galaxies.
-- Groups of galaxies in the ESP survey were objectively identified above a fixed overdensity threshold and their dynamical properties were studied in detail. Moreover, spectral properties of galaxies in groups were compared with those of field galaxies, finding a gradual decrease of the fraction of emission line galaxies among members of systems of increasing richness. This result confirms that the morphology--density relation found for clusters also extends toward systems of lower density.
These results are presented in a series of papers already published (the ESP team (1997) A&A 325, 954; (1997) A&A 326, 477; (1998) A&ASS 130, 323; (1998) A&A 336, 445; (1998) A&A 334, 404; (1999) A&A 342, 1; (2000) A&A 355, 1); other papers are now in press or submitted.
Further information about ESP can be found at the page.