The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation

Jin, Shoko; Trager, Scott C.; Dalton, Gavin B.; Aguerri, J. Alfonso L.; Drew, J. E.; Falcón-Barroso, Jesús; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Hill, Vanessa; Iovino, Angela; Pieri, Matthew M.; Poggianti, Bianca M.; Smith, D. J. B.; Vallenari, Antonella; Abrams, Don Carlos; Aguado, David S.; Antoja, Teresa; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Kuchner, Ulrike; Laigle, Clotilde; Lewis, Jim; Longhetti, Marcella; Lucatello, Sara; Méndez-Abreu, Jairo; Mercurio, Amata; Molaeinezhad, Alireza; Monguió, Maria; Morrison, Sean; Murphy, David N A; Peralta de Arriba, Luis; Pérez Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols, Isabel; Picó, Sergio; Raddi, Roberto; Romero-Gómez, Mercè; Royer, Frédéric; Siebert, Arnaud; Seabroke, George M; Som, Debopam; Terrett, David; Thomas, Guillaume; Wesson, Roger; Worley, C Clare; Alfaro, Emilio J; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Alonso-Santiago, Javier; Amos, Nicholas J; Ashley, Richard P; Balaguer-Nú nez, Lola; Balbinot, Eduardo; Bellazzini, Michele; Benn, Chris R; Berlanas, Sara R; Bernard, Edouard J; Best, Philip; Bet...

Abstract

WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, saw first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-deg field-of-view prime-focus corrector system, a nearly 1000-multiplex fibre positioner, 20 individually deployable ‘mini’ integral field units (IFUs), and a single large IFU. These fibre systems feed a dual-beam spectrograph covering the wavelength range 366–959 nm at R ∼ 5000, or two shorter ranges at R ∼ 20 000. After summarizing the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organization, science drivers, and design of a five- to seven-year programme of eight individual surveys to: (i) study our Galaxy’s origins by completing Gaia’s phase-space information, providing metallicities to its limiting magnitude for ∼3 million stars and detailed abundances for ∼1.5 million brighter field and open-cluster stars; (ii) survey ∼0.4 million Galactic-plane OBA stars, young stellar objects, and nearby gas to understand the evolution of young stars and their environments; (iii) perform an extensive spectral survey of white dwarfs; (iv) survey ∼400 neutral-hydrogen-selected galaxies with the IFUs; (v) study properties and kinematics of stellar populations and ionized gas in z < 0.5 cluster galaxies; (vi) survey stellar populations and kinematics in ∼25 000 field galaxies at 0.3 ≲ z ≲ 0.7; (vii) study the cosmic evolution of accretion and star formation using >1 million spectra of LOFAR-selected radio sources; and (viii) trace structures using intergalactic/circumgalactic gas at z > 2. Finally, we describe the WEAVE Operational Rehearsals using the WEAVE Simulator.

Citation

Jin, S., Trager, S. C., Dalton, G. B., Aguerri, J. A. L., Drew, J. E., Falcón-Barroso, J., …Zurita, C. (2024). The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 530(3), 2688-2730. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad557

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 4, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 11, 2023
• Publication Date: 2024-05
• Deposit Date: Dec 9, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 9, 2022
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 530
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 2688-2730
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad557
• Keywords: surveys – instrumentation: spectrographs – Galaxy: general – stars: general – galaxies: general – cosmology: observations
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/14601371
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/530/3/2688/7076341