The PHANGS-JWST Treasury Survey: Star Formation, Feedback, and Dust Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS
Abstract
The PHANGS collaboration has been building a reference dataset for the multi-scale, multi-phase study of star formation and the interstellar medium in nearby galaxies. With the successful launch and commissioning of JWST, we can now obtain high-resolution infrared imaging to probe the youngest stellar populations and dust emission on the scales of star clusters and molecular clouds (5-50 pc). In Cycle 1, PHANGS is conducting an 8-band imaging survey from 2-21m of 19 nearby spiral galaxies. CO(2-1) mapping, optical integral field spectroscopy, and UV-optical imaging for all 19 galaxies have been obtained through large programs with ALMA, VLT/MUSE, and Hubble. PHANGS-JWST enables a full inventory of star formation, accurate measurement of the mass and age of star clusters, identification of the youngest embedded stellar populations, and characterization of the physical state of small dust grains. When combined with Hubble catalogs of 10,000 star clusters, MUSE spectroscopic mapping of 20,000 HII regions, and 12,000 ALMA-identified molecular clouds, it becomes possible to measure the timescales and efficiencies of the earliest phases of star formation and feedback, build an empirical model of the dependence of small dust grain properties on local ISM conditions, and test our understanding of how dust-reprocessed starlight traces star formation activity, all across a diversity of galactic environments. Here we describe the PHANGS-JWST Treasury survey, present the remarkable imaging obtained in the first few months of science operations, and provide context for the initial results presented in the first series of PHANGS-JWST publications.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2212.02667,
title = {The PHANGS-JWST Treasury Survey: Star Formation, Feedback, and Dust Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS},
author = {Janice C. Lee and Karin M. Sandstrom and Adam K. Leroy and David A. Thilker and Eva Schinnerer and Erik Rosolowsky and Kirsten L. Larson and Oleg V. Egorov and Thomas G. Williams and Judy Schmidt and Eric Emsellem and Gagandeep S. Anand and Ashley T. Barnes and Francesco Belfiore and Ivana Beslic and Frank Bigiel and Guillermo A. Blanc and Alberto D. Bolatto and Mederic Boquien and Jakob den Brok and Yixian Cao and Rupali Chandar and Jeremy Chastenet and Melanie Chevance and I-Da Chiang and Enrico Congiu and Daniel A. Dale and Sinan Deger and Cosima Eibensteiner and Christopher M. Faesi and Simon C. O. Glover and Kathryn Grasha and Brent Groves and Hamid Hassani and Kiana F. Henny and Jonathan D. Henshaw and Nils Hoyer and Annie Hughes and Sarah Jeffreson and Marıa J. Jimenez-Donaire and Jaeyeon Kim and Hwihyun Kim and Ralf S. Klessen and Eric W. Koch and Kathryn Kreckel and J. M. Diederik Kruijssen and Jing Li and Daizhong Liu and Laura A. Lopez and Daniel Maschmann and Ness Mayker Chen and Sharon E. Meidt and Eric J. Murphy and Justus Neumann and Nadine Neumayer and Hsi-An Pan and Ismael Pessa and Jerome Pety and Miguel Querejeta and Francesca Pinna and M. Jimena Rodrıguez and Toshiki Saito and Patricia Sanchez-Blazquez and Francesco Santoro and Amy Sardone and Rowan J. Smith and Mattia C. Sormani and Fabian Scheuermann and Sophia K. Stuber and Jessica Sutter and Jiayi Sun and Yu-Hsuan Teng and Robin G. Tress and Antonio Usero and Elizabeth J. Watkins and Bradley C. Whitmore and Alessandro Razza},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.02667},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
Re-submitted after addressing minor comments from referee. To be published as part of PHANGS-JWST ApJL Focus Issue