JWST PEARLS. Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science: Project Overview and First Results

Abstract

We give an overview and describe the rationale, methods, and first results from NIRCam images of the JWST “Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science” (PEARLS) project. PEARLS uses up to eight NIRCam filters to survey several prime extragalactic survey areas: two fields at the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP); seven gravitationally lensing clusters; two high redshift protoclusters; and the iconic backlit VV 191 galaxy system to map its dust attenuation. PEARLS also includes NIRISS spectra for one of the NEP fields and NIRSpec spectra of two high-redshift quasars. The main goal of PEARLS is to study the epoch of galaxy assembly, active galactic nucleus (AGN) growth, and First Light. Five fields—the JWST NEP Time-Domain Field (TDF), IRAC Dark Field, and three lensing clusters—will be observed in up to four epochs over a year. The cadence and sensitivity of the imaging data are ideally suited to find faint variable objects such as weak AGN, high-redshift supernovae, and cluster caustic transits. Both NEP fields have sightlines through our Galaxy, providing significant numbers of very faint brown dwarfs whose proper motions can be studied. Observations from the first spoke in the NEP TDF are public. This paper presents our first PEARLS observations, their NIRCam data reduction and analysis, our first object catalogs, the 0.9–4.5 μm galaxy counts and Integrated Galaxy Light. We assess the JWST sky brightness in 13 NIRCam filters, yielding our first constraints to diffuse light at 0.9–4.5 μm. PEARLS is designed to be of lasting benefit to the community.

JWST’s PEARLS: A JWST/NIRCam View of ALMA Sources

“…The PEARLS NIRCam data in the TNJ1338 field and the El Gordo field were taken on 2022 July 1 and 29, respectively, and these observations are described by Windhorst et al (2023). Briefly, the observations of El Gordo were done in F090W, F115W, F150W, F200W, F277W, F356W, F410M, and F444W, and the total integration times were 2491, 2491, 1890, 2104, 2104, 1890, 2491, and 2491 s, respectively. The observations in TNJ1338 were done in F150W, F182M, F210M, F300M, F335M, and F360M with a uniform total integration time of 1031 s in each band.…”

“…This paper presents the JWST/NIRCam view of 19 submillimeter/millimeter sources (16 distinct galaxies) from the ALMA archival data in three well-studied fields, which form the largest sample of its kind to date. The JWST/NIRCam data come from the Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science program (PEARLS; Windhorst et al 2023) and the archival data from the Public Release IMaging for Extragalactic Research (PRIMER; Dunlop et al 2021, PI: James Dunlop,). Accurate positions are available from the ALMA 92, 260, or 340 GHz maps, making counterpart identification possible.…”

Inferring More from Less: Prospector as a Photometric Redshift Engine in the Era of JWST

“…Within months of the first data releases, JWST has already begun to revolutionize our view of galaxy formation (e.g., Finkelstein et al 2022a;Treu et al 2022;Windhorst et al 2023). Fitting spectral energy distributions (SEDs) plays a key role in grounding new observations to theories of galaxy evolution.…”

JWST's PEARLS: Bright 1.5–2.0 μm Dropouts in the Spitzer/IRAC Dark Field

“…As we only have four NIRCam bands and one (less-sensitive) ACS band in this field, the interpretation of our F150W and F200W dropouts is more difficult than for other studies mentioned in Section 1. To better understand our sample, we used another PEARLS "blank" field, the "NEP Time-domain Field" (hereafter the "TDF"), which has eight NIRCam bands reaching comparable depths as the IDF (Windhorst et al 2023). In addition to F150W, F200W, F356W, and F444W that the IDF has, the TDF also has F090W, F115W, F277W, and F410M.…”