The WEAVE-LOFAR Survey

Abstract

In these proceedings we highlight the primary scientific goals and design of the WEAVE-LOFAR survey, which will use the new WEAVE spectrograph on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope to provide the primary source of spectroscopic information for the LOFAR Surveys Key Science Project. Beginning in 2018, WEAVE-LOFAR will generate more than 10${}^6$ R=5000 365-960 nm spectra of low-frequency selected radio sources, across three tiers designed to efficiently sample the redshift-luminosity plane, and produce a data set of enormous legacy value. The radio frequency selection, combined with the high multiplex and throughput of the WEAVE spectrograph, make obtaining redshifts in this way very efficient, and we expect that the redshift success rate will approach 100 per cent at $z<1$. This unprecedented spectroscopic sample - which will be complemented by an integral field component - will be transformational in key areas, including studying the star formation history of the Universe, the role of accretion and AGN-driven feedback, properties of the epoch of reionisation, cosmology, cluster haloes and relics, as well as the nature of radio galaxies and protoclusters. Each topic will be addressed in unprecedented detail, and with the most reliable source classifications and redshift information in existence.

10 pages, 4 figures, proceedings of the SF2A conference, Lyon, 2016

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Revisiting the Fanaroff-Riley dichotomy and radio-galaxy morphology with the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS)
• LOFAR/H-ATLAS: The low-frequency radio luminosity - star-formation rate relation
• Discovery of a radio galaxy at z = 5.72
• LOFAR-Boötes: Properties of high- and low-excitation radio galaxies at $0.5<z<2.0$
• The clustering and bias of radio-selected AGN and star-forming galaxies in the COSMOS field
• Cross-correlating radio continuum surveys and CMB lensing: constraining redshift distributions, galaxy bias and cosmology
• Untangling cosmic magnetic fields: Faraday tomography at metre wavelengths with LOFAR
• The detectability of strong 21 centimetre forest absorbers from the diffuse intergalactic medium in late reionisation models
• The environment of radio galaxies: A signature of AGN feedback at high redshifts
• Apercal -- The Apertif Calibration Pipeline
• The Redshift Distribution of Infrared-Faint Radio Sources