Date:
Tue, 19/05/201512:30-13:30
Location:
Kaplun building, Room No. 200
Lecturer: Dr. Rogier Windhorst
Affiliation: Arizona State University
Abstract:
I will review how the 6.5 meter James
Webb Space Telescope (JWST) --- after
its launch in 2018 --- can measure the
epochs of First Light, Reionization,
Galaxy Assembly, and Supermassive
Black-Hole Growth, building on recent
results from the Hubble Wide Field
Camera 3.
First, I'll briefly summarize the significant
technical progress on the design and
fabrication of JWST: more than 98% of its
launch mass has been built, passed final
design, or is being built as of spring 2015.
All JWST's 18 flight mirrors have been
gold-coated with an optical performance
that meets or exceed specs. All of
JWST's scientific instruments were
delivered to NASA GSFC and tested from
mid 2013--2015. I will briefly summarize
the path from today till launch, planned
with an Ariane V for October 2018.
Next, I will briefly review the search for
the first galaxies at redshifts z=9-11 (age
~0.5 Gyr) in the Hubble UltraDeep and
Frontier Fields, and their current
limitations. I will show what combination
of area, depth, and wavelength coverage
are needed for JWST to detect a sufficient
number of First Light objects, and to
measure their evolving luminosity function
(LF). JWST will map the epoch of First
Light through the so-called Population III-
star dominated objects at redshifts z~8--
15, and its transition to the first Pop II
stars in dwarf galaxies at z~<9. JWST will
measure the evolution of the Schechter
LF at z~6--15, when the Universe was
0.3--1 billion years old. A steep faint-end
of the dwarf galaxy LF may have provided
the ultraviolet flux needed to start and
finish cosmic reionization. JWST will also
image the host galaxies of the first
quasars at z>6 in detail.
I will argue that gravitational lensing by
the most highly-concentrated rich
foreground galaxy clusters will need to be
used to maximize the number of First
Light objects (z~>12-15) detected with
JWST. Last, I will address how many
random Webb Deep Fields (WDFs) may
need to be observed with JWST to see
First Light, compared to the best lensing
targets.
Additional details of the upcoming Astrophysics'
seminars can be found on the following link.
האירוע הזה כולל שיחת וידאו ב-Google Hangouts.
הצטרף: https://hangouts.google.com/hangouts/_/mail.huji.ac.il/astrophysics?hceid=bWFpbC5odWppLmFjLmlsX2c0czhydDlpcmhwZzRvdGNybWIzZGFqcjdvQGdyb3VwLmNhbGVuZGFyLmdvb2dsZS5jb20.j9bfpq50jqqaro5but9hdnarr8&hs=121