Integration and early testing of WEAVE: the next-generation spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope
Gavin Dalton, S. C. Trager, Don Carlos Abrams, P. Bonifacio, A. Aguerri, A. Vallenari, Georgia Bishop, Kevin Middleton, Chris Benn, Kevin Dee, Shan Mignot, Ian J. Lewis, Johannes Pragt, Sergio Picó, N. A. Walton, Juerg Rey, Carlos Allende, Émilie Lhomé, M. Balcells, David Terrett, Matthew Brock, Andy Ridings, J. Skvarč, Marc Verheijen, I. A. Steele, Remko Stuik, Gabby Kroes, Neils Tromp, Jan Kragt, Dirk Lesman, Chris Mottram, Stuart Bates, Frank Gribbin, José Alonso Burgal, J.M. Herreros, José Miguel Delgado, Carlos Martín, Diego Cano, Ramón Navarro, Mike J. Irwin, Luis Peralta, Neil O'Mahoney, Andrea Bianco, Alireza Moleinezhad, Rik ter Horst, E. Molinari, Marcello Lodi, José Guerra, Andrea Baruffalo, E. Carrasco, Szigfrid Farcas, Ellen Schallig, Sarah Hughes, V. Hill, Dan J. Smith, J. E. Drew, Bianca M. Poggianti, A. Iovino, Matthew M. Pieri, Shoko Jin, Lillian Domínguez, C. Fariña, Adrian Martin, C. C. Worley, D. N. A. Murphy, S. Guest, Huw Morris, Eddy Elswijk, Menno de Haan, Hiddo Hanenburg, Bernardo Salasnich, Y. D. Mayya, Rafael Izazaga-Pérez, E. Gafton, E. Caffau, D. Horville, Francisco Paz Chinchon, Jesus Falcon-Barosso, B. T. Gänsicke, J. San Juan, Nauzet Hernandez
Abstract
We present an update on the overall integration progress of the WEAVE next-generation spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), now scheduled for first light in early-2021, with almost all components now arrived at the observatory. We also present a summary of the current planning behind the 5-year initial phase of survey operations, and some detailed end-to-end science simulations that have been implemented to evaluate the final on-sky performance after data processing. WEAVE will provide optical ground-based follow up of ground-based (LOFAR) and space-based (Gaia) surveys. WEAVE is a multi-object and multi-IFU facility utilizing a new 2-degree prime focus field of view at the WHT, with a buffered pick-and-place positioner system hosting 1000 multi-object (MOS) fibres, 20 mini integral field units, or a single large IFU for each observation. The fibres are fed to a single (dual-beam) spectrograph, with total of 16k spectral pixels, located within the WHT GHRIL enclosure on the telescope Nasmyth platform, supporting observations at R~5000 over the full 370-1000nm wavelength range in a single exposure, or a high resolution mode with limited coverage in each arm at R~20000.