The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation

Shoko Jin , Scott C. Trager , Gavin B. Dalton , J. Alfonso L. Aguerri , J. E. Drew , Jesús Falcón-Barroso , Boris T. Gänsicke , Vanessa Hill (1) , Angela Iovino , Matthew M. Pieri (2) , Bianca M. Poggianti , D. J. B. Smith , Antonella Vallenari , Don Carlos Abrams , David S. Aguado , Teresa Antoja , Alfonso Aragón-Salamanca , Yago Ascasibar , Carine Babusiaux (3, 4) , Marc Balcells , R. Barrena , Giuseppina Battaglia , Vasily Belokurov , Thomas Bensby , Piercarlo Bonifacio (4) , Angela Bragaglia , Esperanza Carrasco , Ricardo Carrera , Daniel J. Cornwell , Lilian Domínguez-Palmero , Kenneth J. Duncan , Benoit Famaey (5) , Cecilia Fariña , Oscar A. Gonzalez , Steve Guest , Nina A. Hatch , Kelley M. Hess , Matthew J. Hoskin , Mike Irwin , Johan H. Knapen , Sergey E. Koposov , Ulrike Kuchner , Clotilde Laigle , Jim Lewis , Marcella Longhetti , Sara Lucatello (6) , Jairo Méndez-Abreu , Amata Mercurio , Alireza Molaeinezhad , Maria Monguió , Sean Morrison (2) , David N. A. Murphy , Luis Peralta de Arriba , Isabel Pérez , Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols (2) , Sergio Picó , Roberto Raddi , Mercè Romero-Gómez , Frédéric Royer (4) , Arnaud Siebert (5) , George M. Seabroke , Debopam Som , David Terrett , Guillaume Thomas , Roger Wesson , C. Clare Worley , Emilio J. Alfaro , Carlos Allende Prieto , Javier Alonso-Santiago , Nicholas J. Amos , Richard P. Ashley , Lola Balaguer-Nú Nez , Eduardo Balbinot , Michele Bellazzini , Chris R. Benn , Sara R. Berlanas , Edouard J. Bernard (1) , Philip Best , Daniela Bettoni , Andrea Bianco , Georgia Bishop , Michael Blomqvist (2) , Corrado Boeche , Micol Bolzonella , Silvia Bonoli , Albert Bosma (2) , Nikolay Britavskiy , Gianni Busarello , Elisabetta Caffau (4) , Tristan Cantat-Gaudin , Alfred Castro-Ginard , Guilherme Couto , Juan Carbajo-Hijarrubia , David Carter (4) , Laia Casamiquela (4) , Ana M. Conrado , Pablo Corcho-Caballero , Luca Costantin , Alis Deason , Abel de Burgos , Sabrina de Grandi , Paola Di Matteo (4) , Jesús Domínguez-Gómez , Ricardo Dorda , Alyssa Drake , Rajeshwari Dutta , Denis Erkal , Sofia Feltzing , Anna Ferré-Mateu , Diane Feuillet , Francesca Figueras , Matteo Fossati , Elena Franciosini , Antonio Frasca , Michele Fumagalli , Anna Gallazzi , Rubén García-Benito , Nicola Gentile Fusillo , Marwan Gebran , James Gilbert , T. M. Gledhill , Rosa M. González Delgado , Robert Greimel , Mario Giuseppe Guarcello , Jose Guerra , Marco Gullieuszik , Christopher P. Haines , Martin J. Hardcastle , Amy Harris , Misha Haywood (4) , Amina Helmi , Nauzet Hernandez , Artemio Herrero , Sarah Hughes , Vid Irsic , Pascale Jablonka (4) , Matt J. Jarvis , Carme Jordi , Rohit Kondapally , Georges Kordopatis (1) , Jens-Kristian Krogager , Francesco La Barbera , Man I. Lam , Søren S. Larsen (7) , Bertrand Lemasle , Ian J. Lewis , Emilie Lhomé , Karin Lind (6) , Marcello Lodi , Alessia Longobardi , Ilaria Lonoce , Laura Magrini , Jesús Maíz Apellániz , Olivier Marchal (5) , Amparo Marco , Nicolas F. Martin (5) , Tadafumi Matsuno , Sophie Maurogordato (1) , Paola Merluzzi , Jordi Miralda-Escudé , Emilio Molinari , Giacomo Monari (5) , Lorenzo Morelli , Christopher J. Mottram , Tim Naylor , Ignacio Negueruela , Jose Onorbe , Elena Pancino , Sébastien Peirani (1) , Reynier F. Peletier , Lucia Pozzetti , Monica Rainer , Pau Ramos , Shaun C. Read , Elena Maria Rossi , Huub J. A. Röttgering , Jose Alberto Rubiño-Martín , Jose Sabater Montes , José San Juan , Nicoletta Sanna , Ellen Schallig , Ricardo P. Schiavon , Mathias Schultheis (1) , Paolo Serra , Timothy W. Shimwell , Sergio Simón-Díaz , Russell J. Smith , Rosanna Sordo , Daniele Sorini , Caroline Soubiran , Else Starkenburg , Iain A. Steele , John Stott , Remko Stuik , Eline Tolstoy , Crescenzo Tortora , Maria Tsantaki , Mathieu van der Swaelmen , Reinout J. van Weeren , Daniela Vergani , Marc A. W. Verheijen , Kristiina Verro , Jorick S. Vink , Miguel Vioque , C. Jakob Walcher , Nicholas A. Walton , Christopher Wegg (1) , Anne-Marie Weijmans , Wendy L. Williams , Andrew J. Wilson , Nicholas J. Wright , Theodora Xylakis-Dornbusch , Kris Youakim , Stefano Zibetti , Cristina Zurita

1 OCA - Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur
2 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
3 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
4 GEPI - Galaxies, Etoiles, Physique, Instrumentation
5 ObAS - Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg
6 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
7 CRAL - Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon

WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, will see first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-degree 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 ~ 20 000. After summarising the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organisation, 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 ionised gas in z < 0.5 cluster galaxies; (vi) survey stellar populations and kinematics in ~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; (viii) trace structures using intergalactic/circumgalactic gas at z > 2. Finally, we describe the WEAVE Operational Rehearsals using the WEAVE Simulator.

Keywords: surveys; instrumentation: spectrographs; Galaxy: general; stars: general; galaxies: general; cosmology: observations; Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics; Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics; Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Shoko Jin, Scott C. Trager, Gavin B. Dalton, J. Alfonso L. Aguerri, J. E. Drew, et al.. The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2023, ⟨10.1093/mnras/stad557⟩. ⟨insu-04040492⟩