The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation
Costantin, Luca; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Naylor, Tim; Gallazzi, Anna; Zibetti, Stefano; Raddi, Roberto; Erkal, Denis; Belokurov, Vasily; Lind, Karin; Kuchner, Ulrike; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Martin, Nicolas F.; Wright, Nicholas J.; Fumagalli, Michele; Cantat-Gaudin, Tristan; Balcells, Marc; Domínguez-Palmero, Lilian; Peletier, Reynier F.; Kordopatis, Georges; Helmi, Amina; Antoja, Teresa; Siebert, Arnaud; Famaey, Benoit; Tolstoy, Eline; Aguado, David S.; Hill, Vanessa; Jablonka, Pascale; Matsuno, Tadafumi; Starkenburg, Else; Di Matteo, Paola; Haywood, Misha; Jarvis, Matt J.; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Dutta, Rajeshwari; Fossati, Matteo; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Méndez-Abreu, Jairo; Falcón-Barroso, Jesús; Pérez, Isabel; Babusiaux, Carine; Irwin, Mike; Thomas, Guillaume; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Gledhill, T. M.; Larsen, Søren S.; Stott, John; Som, Debopam; Knapen, Johan H.; Vink, Jorick S.; Bragaglia, Angela; Koposov, Sergey E.; Hatch, Nina A.; Mercurio, Amata; Smith, D. J. B.; Feltzing, Sofia; Franciosini, Elena; Williams, Wendy L.; Ferré-Mateu, Anna; Poggianti, Bianca M.; Bettoni, Daniela; Bernard, Edouard J.; Magrini, Laura; Lucatello, Sara; Bonifacio, Piercarlo; Stuik, Remko; Deason, Alis; Molinari, Emilio; Battaglia, Giuseppina; Herrero, Artemio; Figueras, Francesca; Ramos, Pau; Trager, Scott C.; Shimwell, Timothy W.; Bellazzini, Michele; Drew, J. E.; Laigle, Clotilde; La Barbera, Francesco; Serra, Paolo; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Balbinot, Eduardo; Schultheis, Mathias; Bensby, Thomas; Lam, Man I.; Carter, David; Walcher, C. Jakob; Caffau, Elisabetta; Aguerri, J. Alfonso L.; Monari, Giacomo; Vergani, Daniela; Hoskin, Matthew J.; Jordi, Carme; Vallenari, Antonella; Gonzalez, Oscar A.; Smith, Russell J.; Wegg, Christopher; Gilbert, James; Alfaro, Emilio J.; Carrera, Ricardo; van Weeren, Reinout J.; Hardcastle, Martin J.; Youakim, Kris; Gebran, Marwan; González Delgado, Rosa M.; Castro-Ginard, Alfred; Balaguer-Núñez, Lola; Peralta de Arriba, Luis; Seabroke, George M.; Pozzetti, Lucia; Rossi, Elena Maria; Gullieuszik, Marco; Wesson, Roger; Gentile Fusillo, Nicola; Best, Philip; Molaeinezhad, Alireza; Lewis, Ian J.; Iršič, Vid; Barrena, R.; Dalton, Gavin B.; Bolzonella, Micol; Negueruela, Ignacio; Vioque, Miguel; Bonoli, Silvia; Lemasle, Bertrand; Frasca, Antonio; Maíz Apellániz, Jesús; Morelli, Lorenzo; Pancino, Elena; Sorini, Daniele; Greimel, Robert; Jin, Shoko; Iovino, Angela; Pieri, Matthew M.; Abrams, Don Carlos; Ascasibar, Yago; Carrasco, Esperanza; Cornwell, Daniel J.; Duncan, Kenneth J.; Fariña, Cecilia; Guest, Steve; Hess, Kelley M.; Lewis, Jim; Longhetti, Marcella; Monguió, Maria; Morrison, Sean; Murphy, David N. A.; Pérez-Ràfols, Ignasi; Picó, Sergio; Romero-Gómez, Mercè; Royer, Frédéric; Terrett, David; Worley, C. Clare; Alonso-Santiago, Javier; Amos, Nicholas J.; Ashley, Richard P.; Benn, Chris R.; Berlanas, Sara R.; Bianco, Andrea; Bishop, Georgia; Blomqvist, Michael; Boeche, Corrado; Bosma, Albert; Britavskiy, Nikolay; Busarello, Gianni; Couto, Guilherme; Carbajo-Hijarrubia, Juan; Casamiquela, Laia; Conrado, Ana M.; Corcho-Caballero, Pablo; de Burgos, Abel; De Grandi, Sabrina; Domínguez-Gómez, Jesús; Dorda, Ricardo; Drake, Alyssa; Feuillet, Diane; García-Benito, Rubén; Guarcello, Mario Giuseppe; Guerra, Jose; Haines, Christopher P.; Harris, Amy; Hernandez, Nauzet; Hughes, Sarah; Kondapally, Rohit; Krogager, Jens-Kristian; Lhomé, Emilie; Lodi, Marcello; Longobardi, Alessia; Lonoce, Ilaria; Marchal, Olivier; Marco, Amparo; Maurogordato, Sophie; Merluzzi, Paola; Mottram, Christopher J.; Oñorbe, Jose; Peirani, Sébastien; Rainer, Monica; Read, Shaun C.; Röttgering, Huub J. A.; Rubiño-Martín, Jose Alberto; Sabater, Jose; San Juan, José; Sanna, Nicoletta; Schallig, Ellen; Simón-Díaz, Sergio; Sordo, Rosanna; Soubiran, Caroline; Steele, Iain A.; Tortora, Crescenzo; Tsantaki, Maria; Van der Swaelmen, Mathieu; Verheijen, Marc A. W.; Verro, Kristiina; Walton, Nicholas A.; Wilson, Andrew J.; Xylakis-Dornbusch, Theodora; Zurita, Cristina
United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, México, United States, Germany, Belgium, Australia, Austria, Chile, South Africa, Japan, Switzerland
Abstract
WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, saw first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-deg 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 $R\sim 20\, 000$. After summarizing the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organization, 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 ionized gas in z < 0.5 cluster galaxies; (vi) survey stellar populations and kinematics in ${\sim} 25\, 000$ 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; and (viii) trace structures using intergalactic/circumgalactic gas at z > 2. Finally, we describe the WEAVE Operational Rehearsals using the WEAVE Simulator.