The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation
Shoko Jin, S. C. Trager, Gavin Dalton, J. A. L. Aguerri, J. E. Drew, J. Falcón‐Barroso, B. T. Gänsicke, V. Hill, A. Iovino, Matthew M. Pieri, Bianca M. Poggianti, D. J. B. Smith, A. Vallenari, Don Carlos Abrams, David S. Aguado, T. Antoja, Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca, Y. Ascasíbar, C. Babusiaux, M. Balcells, R. Barrena, G. Battaglia, Vasily Belokurov, T. Bensby, P. Bonifacio, A. Bragaglia, E. Carrasco, R. Carrera, Daniel J. Cornwell, Lilian Domínguez-Palmero, K. J. Duncan, Benoît Famaey, C. Fariña, O. A. González, S. Guest, N. A. Hatch, Kelley M. Hess, Matthew J. Hoskin, Mike Irwin, J. H. Knapen, S. E. Koposov, Ulrike Kuchner, C. Laigle, Jim Lewis, M. Longhetti, S. Lucatello, J. Méndez‐Abreu, A. Mercurio, Alireza Molaeinezhad, M. Monguió, Sean Morrison, D. N. A. Murphy, L. Peralta de Arriba, Isabel Pérez, Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols, Sergio Picó, R. Raddi, M. Romero-Gómez, F. Royer, A. Siebert, G. M. Seabroke, Debopam Som, David Terrett, Guillaume F. Thomas, R. Wesson, C. C. Worley, E. J. Alfaro, Carlos Allende Prieto, J. Alonso-Santiago, Nicholas Amos, R. P. Ashley, L. Balaguer-Núñez, E. Balbinot, M. Bellazzini, Chris Benn, S. R. Berlanas, Edouard J. Bernard, P. N. Best, D. Bettoni, Andrea Bianco, Georgia Bishop, Michael Blomqvist, C. Boeche, M. Bolzonella, Silvia Bonoli, A. Bosma, N. Britavskiy, G. Busarello, E. Caffau, T. Cantat-Gaudin, A. Castro-Ginard, Guilherme S. Couto, J. Carbajo-Hijarrubia, David Carter, L. Casamiquela, A. Conrado, Pablo Corcho-Caballero, Luca Costantin, Alis J. Deason, Abel de Burgos
Abstract
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 $R\sim 20\, 000$. 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 ${\sim} 25\, 000$ 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.