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

Abstract

WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, will see first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-degree 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∼20000. After summarising the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organisation, 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 ionised gas in z<0.5 cluster galaxies; (vi) survey stellar populations and kinematics in ∼25000 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; (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., …Kuchner, U. (2023). The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad557

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 4, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 11, 2023
• Publication Date: Mar 11, 2023
• Deposit Date: Dec 9, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 9, 2022
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• 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/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stad557/7076341?login=false