A new catalog of photometric redshifts in the Hubble Deep Field

Using the newly available infrared images of the Hubble Deep Field in the J, H, and K bands and an optimal photometric method, we have refined a technique to estimate the redshifts of 1067 galaxies. A detailed comparison of our results with the spectroscopic redshifts in those cases where the latter are available shows that this technique gives very good results for bright enough objects [AB(8140) < 26.0]. From a study of the distribution of residuals [Δz_rms/(1 + z) ≈ 0.1 at all redshifts], we conclude that the observed errors are mainly due to cosmic variance. This very important result allows for the assessment of errors in quantities to be directly or indirectly measured from the catalog. We present some of the statistical properties of the ensemble of galaxies in the catalog, and we finish by presenting a list of bright high-redshift (z ≈ 5) candidates extracted from our catalog together with recent spectroscopic redshift determinations confirming that two of them are at z = 5.34 and z = 5.60.