English

The JWST Resolved Stellar Populations Early Release Science Program II. Survey Overview

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2023-01-13 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

We present the JWST Resolved Stellar Populations Early Release Science (ERS) science program. We obtained 27.5 hours of NIRCam and NIRISS imaging of three targets in the Local Group (Milky Way globular cluster M92, ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Draco II, star-forming dwarf galaxy WLM), which span factors of 105\sim10^5 in luminosity, 104\sim10^4 in distance, and 105\sim10^5 in surface brightness. We describe the survey strategy, scientific and technical goals, implementation details, present select NIRCam color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), and validate the NIRCam exposure time calculator (ETC). Our CMDs are among the deepest in existence for each class of target. They touch the theoretical hydrogen burning limit in M92 (<0.08<0.08 MM_{\odot}; SNR 5\sim5 at mF090W28.2m_{F090W}\sim28.2; MF090W+13.6M_{F090W}\sim+13.6), include the lowest-mass stars observed outside the Milky Way in Draco II (0.09 MM_{\odot}; SNR =10=10 at mF090W29m_{F090W}\sim29; MF090W+12.1M_{F090W}\sim+12.1), and reach 1.5\sim1.5 magnitudes below the oldest main sequence turnoff in WLM (SNR =10=10 at mF090W29.5m_{F090W}\sim29.5; MF090W+4.6M_{F090W}\sim+4.6). The PARSEC stellar models provide a good qualitative match to the NIRCam CMDs, though are 0.05\sim0.05 mag too blue compared to M92 F090W-F150W data. The NIRCam ETC (v2.0) matches the SNRs based on photon noise from DOLPHOT stellar photometry in uncrowded fields, but the ETC may not be accurate in more crowded fields, similar to what is known for HST. We release beta versions of DOLPHOT NIRCam and NIRISS modules to the community. Results from this ERS program will establish JWST as the premier instrument for resolved stellar populations studies for decades to come.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.04659,
  title  = {The JWST Resolved Stellar Populations Early Release Science Program II. Survey Overview},
  author = {Daniel R. Weisz and Kristen B. W. McQuinn and Alessandro Savino and Nitya Kallivayalil and Jay Anderson and Martha L. Boyer and Matteo Correnti and Marla C. Geha and Andrew E. Dolphin and Karin M. Sandstrom and Andrew A. Cole and Benjamin F. Williams and Evan D. Skillman and Roger E. Cohen and Max J. B. Newman and Rachael Beaton and Alessandro Bressan and Alberto Bolatto and Michael Boylan-Kolchin and Alyson M. Brooks and James S. Bullock and Charlie Conroy and M. C. Cooper and Julianne J. Dalcanton and Aaron L. Dotter and Tobias K. Fritz and Chris Garling and Mario Gennaro and Karoline M. Gilbert and Leo Girardi and Benjamin D. Johnson and L. Clifton Johnson and Jason Kalirai and Evan N. Kirby and Dustin Lang and Paola Marigo and Hannah Richstein and Edward F. Schlafly and Judy Schmidt and Erik J. Tollerud and Jack T. Warfield and Andrew Wetzel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.04659},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

23 pages, 7 Figures, 3 Tables. Submitted to AAS Journals. Comments welcome

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