The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2024)
The Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public Near-infrared Slitless Survey Epoch 1 (NGDEEP-NISS1): Extragalactic Star-formation and Active Galactic Nuclei at 0.5 < z < 3.6
- Nor Pirzkal,
- Barry Rothberg,
- Casey Papovich,
- Lu Shen,
- Gene C. K. Leung,
- Micaela B. Bagley,
- Steven L. Finkelstein,
- Brittany N. Vanderhoof,
- Jennifer M. Lotz,
- Anton M. Koekemoer,
- Nimish P. Hathi,
- Yingjie Cheng,
- Nikko J. Cleri,
- Norman A. Grogin,
- L. Y. Aaron Yung,
- Mark Dickinson,
- Henry C. Ferguson,
- Jonathan P. Gardner,
- Intae Jung,
- Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe,
- Russell Ryan,
- Raymond C. Simons,
- Swara Ravindranath,
- Danielle A. Berg,
- Bren E. Backhaus,
- Caitlin M. Casey,
- Marco Castellano,
- Óscar A. Chávez Ortiz,
- Katherine Chworowsky,
- Isabella G. Cox,
- Romeel Davé,
- Kelcey Davis,
- Vicente Estrada-Carpenter,
- Adriano Fontana,
- Seiji Fujimoto,
- Mauro Giavalisco,
- Andrea Grazian,
- Taylor A. Hutchison,
- Anne E. Jaskot,
- Lisa J. Kewley,
- Allison Kirkpatrick,
- Dale D. Kocevski,
- Rebecca L. Larson,
- Jasleen Matharu,
- Priyamvada Natarajan,
- Laura Pentericci,
- Pablo G. Pérez-González,
- Gregory F. Snyder,
- Rachel S. Somerville,
- Jonathan R. Trump,
- Stephen M. Wilkins
Affiliations
- Nor Pirzkal
- ORCiD
- ESA/AURA Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD, 212129, USA ; [email protected]
- Barry Rothberg
- ORCiD
- U.S. Naval Observatory , 3450 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20392, USA; Department of Physics and Astronomy, George Mason University , 4400 University Drive, MSN 3F3, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
- Casey Papovich
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA; George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA
- Lu Shen
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA; George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA
- Gene C. K. Leung
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Micaela B. Bagley
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Steven L. Finkelstein
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Brittany N. Vanderhoof
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Jennifer M. Lotz
- ORCiD
- Gemini Observatory/NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
- Anton M. Koekemoer
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Nimish P. Hathi
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Yingjie Cheng
- ORCiD
- University of Massachusetts Amherst , 710 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003-9305, USA
- Nikko J. Cleri
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA
- Norman A. Grogin
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- L. Y. Aaron Yung
- ORCiD
- George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA; Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Mark Dickinson
- ORCiD
- NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
- Henry C. Ferguson
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Jonathan P. Gardner
- ORCiD
- Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- Intae Jung
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe
- ORCiD
- Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy , Rochester Institute of Technology, 84 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
- Russell Ryan
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Raymond C. Simons
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196 Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Swara Ravindranath
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Danielle A. Berg
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Bren E. Backhaus
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196A Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Caitlin M. Casey
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA; Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark
- Marco Castellano
- ORCiD
- INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma , via di Frascati 33, 00078 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy
- Óscar A. Chávez Ortiz
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Katherine Chworowsky
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Isabella G. Cox
- ORCiD
- Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy , Rochester Institute of Technology, 84 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
- Romeel Davé
- ORCiD
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh , Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ, UK; University of the Western Cape , Bellville, Cape Town 7535, South Africa
- Kelcey Davis
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196 Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Vicente Estrada-Carpenter
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Physics, Saint Mary’s University , 923 Robie Street, Halifax, NS, B3H 3C3, Canada
- Adriano Fontana
- ORCiD
- INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma , Via Frascati 33, 00078 Monteporzio Catone, Rome, Italy
- Seiji Fujimoto
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Mauro Giavalisco
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Andrea Grazian
- ORCiD
- INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova , Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, I-35122, Padova, Italy
- Taylor A. Hutchison
- ORCiD
- Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- Anne E. Jaskot
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Williams College , Williamstown, MA, USA
- Lisa J. Kewley
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Allison Kirkpatrick
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas , Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
- Dale D. Kocevski
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Colby College , Waterville, ME 04901, USA
- Rebecca L. Larson
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Jasleen Matharu
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Rådmandsgade 62, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark
- Priyamvada Natarajan
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Yale University , 52 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511, USA; Department of Physics, Yale University , P.O. Box 208121, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University , 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Laura Pentericci
- ORCiD
- INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma , via di Frascati 33, 00078 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy
- Pablo G. Pérez-González
- ORCiD
- Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) , CSIC-INTA, Ctra. de Ajalvir km 4, Torrejón de Ardoz, E-28850, Madrid, Spain
- Gregory F. Snyder
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Rachel S. Somerville
- ORCiD
- Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute , 162 5th Avenue, New York, NY, 10010, USA
- Jonathan R. Trump
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196 Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Stephen M. Wilkins
- ORCiD
- Astronomy Centre, University of Sussex , Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK; Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, University of Malta , Msida MSD 2080, Malta
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad429c
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 969,
no. 2
p. 90
Abstract
The Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public (NGDEEP) survey program was designed specifically to include Near Infrared Slitless Spectroscopic observations (NGDEEP-NISS) to detect multiple emission lines in as many galaxies as possible and across a wide redshift range using the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph. We present early results obtained from the first set of observations (Epoch 1, 50% of the allocated orbits) of this program (NGDEEP-NISS1). Using a set of independently developed calibration files designed to deal with a complex combination of overlapping spectra, multiple position angles, and multiple cross filters and grisms, in conjunction with a robust and proven algorithm for quantifying contamination from overlapping dispersed spectra, NGDEEP-NISS1 has achieved a 3 σ sensitivity limit of 2 × 10 ^−18 erg s ^−1 cm ^−2 . We demonstrate the power of deep wide field slitless spectroscopy (WFSS) to characterize the star formation rates, and metallicity ([O iii ]/H β ), and dust content, of galaxies at 1 < z < 3.5. The latter showing intriguing initial results on the applicability and assumptions made regarding the use of Case B recombination. Further, we identify the presence of active galactic nuclei and infer the mass of their supermassive black holes using broadened restframe Mg ii and H β emission lines. The spectroscopic results are then compared with the physical properties of galaxies extrapolated from fitting spectral energy distribution models to photometry alone. The results clearly demonstrate the unique power and efficiency of WFSS at near-infrared wavelengths over other methods to determine the properties of galaxies across a broad range of redshifts.
Keywords