The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (Jan 2023)
JWST's PEARLS: Transients in the MACS J0416.1−2403 Field
- Haojing Yan,
- Zhiyuan Ma,
- Bangzheng Sun,
- Lifan Wang,
- Patrick Kelly,
- José M. Diego,
- Seth H. Cohen,
- Rogier A. Windhorst,
- Rolf A. Jansen,
- Norman A. Grogin,
- John F. Beacom,
- Christopher J. Conselice,
- Simon P. Driver,
- Brenda Frye,
- Dan Coe,
- Madeline A. Marshall,
- Anton Koekemoer,
- Christopher N. A. Willmer,
- Aaron Robotham,
- Jordan C. J. D’Silva,
- Jake Summers,
- Mario Nonino,
- Nor Pirzkal,
- Russell E. Ryan Jr.,
- Rafael Ortiz III,
- Scott Tompkins,
- Rachana A. Bhatawdekar,
- Cheng Cheng,
- Adi Zitrin,
- S. P. Willner
Affiliations
- Haojing Yan
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri , Columbia, MO 65211, USA
- Zhiyuan Ma
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Bangzheng Sun
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri , Columbia, MO 65211, USA
- Lifan Wang
- ORCiD
- George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics & Astronomy, Texas A&M University , Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4242 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA
- Patrick Kelly
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
- José M. Diego
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC-UC) , Avda. Los Castros s/n, E-39005, Santander, Spain
- Seth H. Cohen
- ORCiD
- School of Earth & Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA
- Rogier A. Windhorst
- ORCiD
- School of Earth & Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA; Department of Physics, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1504, USA
- Rolf A. Jansen
- ORCiD
- School of Earth & Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA
- Norman A. Grogin
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- John F. Beacom
- ORCiD
- Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP), The Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- Christopher J. Conselice
- ORCiD
- Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Alan Turing Building, University of Manchester , Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
- Simon P. Driver
- ORCiD
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the International Space Centre (ISC), The University of Western Australia , M468, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
- Brenda Frye
- ORCiD
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona , 933 N Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0009, USA
- Dan Coe
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Madeline A. Marshall
- ORCiD
- National Research Council of Canada , Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Centre, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada; ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) , Australia
- Anton Koekemoer
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Christopher N. A. Willmer
- ORCiD
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona , 933 N Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0009, USA
- Aaron Robotham
- ORCiD
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the International Space Centre (ISC), The University of Western Australia , M468, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
- Jordan C. J. D’Silva
- ORCiD
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the International Space Centre (ISC), The University of Western Australia , M468, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
- Jake Summers
- ORCiD
- School of Earth & Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA
- Mario Nonino
- ORCiD
- INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste , Via Bazzoni 2, I-34124 Trieste, Italy
- Nor Pirzkal
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Russell E. Ryan Jr.
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Rafael Ortiz III
- ORCiD
- School of Earth & Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA
- Scott Tompkins
- ORCiD
- School of Earth & Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA
- Rachana A. Bhatawdekar
- ORCiD
- European Space Agency , ESA/ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands
- Cheng Cheng
- ORCiD
- Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy , National Astronomical Observatories, CAS, Beijing 100101, People's Republic of China
- Adi Zitrin
- ORCiD
- Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel
- S. P. Willner
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ad0298
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 269,
no. 2
p. 43
Abstract
With its unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has opened a new window for time-domain discoveries in the infrared. Here we report observations in the only field that has received four epochs (spanning 126 days) of JWST NIRCam observations in Cycle 1. This field is toward MACS J0416.1−2403, which is a rich galaxy cluster at redshift z = 0.4 and is one of the Hubble Frontier Fields. We have discovered 14 transients from these data. Twelve of these transients happened in three galaxies (with z = 0.94, 1.01, and 2.091) crossing a lensing caustic of the cluster, and these transients are highly magnified by gravitational lensing. These 12 transients are likely of a similar nature to those previously reported based on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data in this field, i.e., individual stars in the highly magnified arcs. However, these 12 could not have been found by HST because they were too red and too faint. The other two transients are associated with background galaxies ( z = 2.205 and 0.7093) that are only moderately magnified, and they are likely supernovae. They indicate a demagnified supernova surface density, when monitored at a time cadence of a few months to a ∼3–4 μ m survey limit of AB ∼28.5 mag, of ∼0.5 arcmin ^−2 integrated to z ≈ 2. This survey depth is beyond the capability of HST but can be easily reached by JWST.
Keywords