paper

Exploring the evolution of star formation and dwarf galaxy properties with JWST/MIRI serendipitous spectroscopic surveys

arXiv:1701.07239 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa5c85

Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope's Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MRS), will offer nearly 2 orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity and >3X improvement in spectral resolution over our previous space-based mid-IR spectrometer, the Spitzer IRS. In this paper, we make predictions for spectroscopic pointed observations and serendipitous detections with the MRS. Specifically, pointed observations of Herschel sources require only a few minutes on source integration for detections of several star-forming and active galactic nucleus lines, out to z3 and beyond. But the same data will also include tens of serendipitous 0z4 galaxies per field with infrared luminosities ranging L. In particular, for the first time and for free we will be able to explore the regime out to . We estimate that with 100 such fields, statistics of these detections will be sufficient to constrain the evolution of the low- end of the infrared luminosity function, and hence the star formation rate function. The above conclusions hold for a wide range in potential low- end of the IR luminosity function, and accounting for the PAH deficit in low-, low-metallicity galaxies.

arXiv comment31 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

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