Journal article
WEAVE-StePS - a Stellar Population Survey using WEAVE at WHT
- Abstract:
-
Context. The upcoming new generation of optical spectrographs on four-meter-class telescopes will provide valuable opportunities for forthcoming galaxy surveys through their huge multiplexing capabilities, excellent spectral resolution, and unprecedented wavelength coverage.
Aims. WEAVE is a new wide-field spectroscopic facility mounted on the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope in La Palma. WEAVE-StePS is one of the five extragalactic surveys that will use WEAVE during its first five years of operations. It will observe galaxies using WEAVE MOS (∼950 fibres distributed across a field of view of ∼3 square degrees on the sky) in low-resolution mode (R ∼ 5000, spanning the wavelength range 3660 − 9590 Å).
Methods. WEAVE-StePS will obtain high-quality spectra (S/N ∼ 10 Å−1 at R ∼ 5000) for a magnitude-limited (IAB = 20.5) sample of ∼25 000 galaxies, the majority selected at z ≥ 0.3. The survey goal is to provide precise spectral measurements in the crucial interval that bridges the gap between LEGA-C and SDSS data. The wide area coverage of ∼25 square degrees will enable us to observe galaxies in a variety of environments. The ancillary data available in each of the observed fields (including X-ray coverage, multi-narrow-band photometry and spectroscopic redshift information) will provide an environmental characterisation for each observed galaxy.
Results. This paper presents the science case of WEAVE-StePS, the fields to be observed, the parent catalogues used to define the target sample, and the observing strategy that was chosen after a forecast of the expected performance of the instrument for our typical targets.
Conclusions. WEAVE-StePS will go back further in cosmic time than SDSS, extending its reach to encompass more than ∼6 Gyr. This is nearly half of the age of the Universe. The spectral and redshift range covered by WEAVE-StePS will open a new observational window by continuously tracing the evolutionary path of galaxies in the largely unexplored intermediate-redshift range.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 5.7MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1051/0004-6361/202245361
Authors
+ Science and Technology Facilities Council
More from this funder
- Grant:
- ST/S000488/1
- ST/P003451/1
- ST/N006666/1
- ST/J005584/1
- ST/M002128/1
- ST/K005103/1
- Publisher:
- EDP Sciences
- Journal:
- Astronomy and Astrophysics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 672
- Article number:
- A87
- Publication date:
- 2023-04-04
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-01-18
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1432-0746
- ISSN:
-
0004-6361
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1325016
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1325016
- Deposit date:
-
2023-01-24
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Iovino et al
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- ©2023 Authors. Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record