The PHANGS-HST Survey: Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS with the Hubble Space Telescope

Abstract

The PHANGS program is building the first dataset to enable the multi-phase, multi-scale study of star formation across the nearby spiral galaxy population. This effort is enabled by large survey programs with ALMA, VLT/MUSE, and HST, with which we have obtained CO(2-1) imaging, optical spectroscopic mapping, and high resolution UV-optical imaging, respectively. Here, we present PHANGS-HST, which has obtained five band NUV-U-B-V-I imaging of the disks of 38 spiral galaxies at distances of 4-23 Mpc, and parallel V and I band imaging of their halos, to provide a census of tens of thousands of compact star clusters, and multi-scale stellar associations. The combination of HST, ALMA, and VLT/MUSE observations will yield an unprecedented joint catalog of the observed and physical properties of ~100,000 star clusters, associations, HII regions, and molecular clouds. With these basic units of star formation, PHANGS will systematically chart the evolutionary cycling between gas and stars, across a diversity of galactic environments found in nearby galaxies. We discuss the design of the PHANGS-HST survey, and provide an overview of the HST data processing pipeline and first results, highlighting new methods for selecting star cluster candidates, morphological classification of candidates with convolutional neural networks, and identification of stellar associations over a range of physical scales with a watershed algorithm. We describe the cross-observatory imaging, catalogs, and software products to be released. These high-level science products will seed a broad range of investigations, in particular, the study of embedded stellar populations and dust with JWST, for which a PHANGS Cycle 1 Treasury program to obtain eight band 2-21 $\mu$m imaging has been approved.

arXiv commentApJS in press. Accepted draft includes moderate revision and updates to the originally posted submitted version. 27 pages, 11 figures, 1 table. Data products released at https://archive.stsci.edu/hlsp/phangs-hst/

References in corpus (114)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant
• Embedded Clusters in Molecular Clouds
• Theory of Star Formation
• Gaia Data Release 2: The astrometric solution
• The Star Formation Efficiency in Nearby Galaxies: Measuring Where Gas Forms Stars Effectively
• Control of star formation by supersonic turbulence
• UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
• Galaxies on FIRE (Feedback In Realistic Environments): Stellar Feedback Explains Cosmologically Inefficient Star Formation
• CIGALE: a python Code Investigating GALaxy Emission
• The SBF Survey of Galaxy Distances. IV. SBF Magnitudes, Colors, and Distances
• Young massive star clusters
• A General Theory of Turbulence-Regulated Star Formation, From Spirals to ULIRGs
• Analysis of galaxy SEDs from far-UV to far-IR with CIGALE: Studying a SINGS test sample
• Molecular Gas and Star Formation in Nearby Disk Galaxies
• Star Clusters Across Cosmic Time
• The Luminosity Function of Young Star Clusters In "The Antennae" Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039)
• Dust Attenuation Curves in the Local Universe: Demographics and New Laws for Star-forming Galaxies and High-redshift Analogs
• Numerical Methods of Star Formation History Measurement and Applications to Seven Dwarf Spheroidals
• Star Formation in a Crossing Time
• Star Formation and Dust Attenuation Properties in Galaxies from a Statistical UV-to-FIR Analysis
• xCOLD GASS: the complete IRAM-30m legacy survey of molecular gas for galaxy evolution studies
• Cosmicflows-3
• An H-alpha Imaging Survey of Galaxies in the Local 11 Mpc Volume
• On the fraction of star formation occurring in bound stellar clusters
• GALEX-SDSS-WISE Legacy Catalog (GSWLC): Star Formation Rates, Stellar Masses and Dust Attenuations of 700,000 Low-redshift Galaxies
• GOALS: The Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey
• Physical properties of molecular clouds for the entire Milky Way disk
• Star Formation Efficiencies and Lifetimes of Giant Molecular Clouds in the Milky Way
• The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury
• The SILCC (SImulating the LifeCycle of molecular Clouds) project: I. Chemical evolution of the supernova-driven ISM
• Turbulent molecular clouds
• The Cosmic Baryon and Metal Cycles
• A z=0 Multi-wavelength Galaxy Synthesis I: A WISE and GALEX Atlas of Local Galaxies
• An Improved Distance to NGC 4258 and its Implications for the Hubble Constant
• Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback
• The Extragalactic Distance Database: Color-Magnitude Diagrams
• Cloud-Scale Molecular Gas Properties in 15 Nearby Galaxies
• A GALEX Ultraviolet Imaging Survey of Galaxies in the Local Volume
• Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) with The Hubble Space Telescope. I. Survey Description
• Galaxy Groups within 3500 km s${}^{-1}$
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Mira Variables in the Type Ia Supernova Host NGC 1559: An Alternative Candle to Measure the Hubble Constant
• Distances to PHANGS Galaxies: New Tip of the Red Giant Branch Measurements and Adopted Distances
• The Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039) Revisited: ACS and NICMOS Observations of a Prototypical Merger
• A Comparative Study of Giant Molecular Clouds in M51, M33 and the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Gas Kinematics on GMC scales in M51 with PAWS: cloud stabilization through dynamical pressure
• PHANGS-ALMA Data Processing and Pipeline
• Dwarf Galaxy Starburst Statistics in the Local Volume
• Probing the role of the galactic environment in the formation of stellar clusters; using M83 as a test bench
• Mapping metallicity variations across nearby galaxy disks
• The Standardized Candle Method for Type II Plateau Supernovae
• Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey with The Hubble Space Telescope. Stellar cluster catalogues and first insights into cluster formation and evolution in NGC 628
• The Role of Stellar Feedback in the Dynamics of HII Regions
• Spectral Energy Distributions of Local Luminous And Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• Towards a Cosmological Hubble Diagram for Type II-P Supernovae
• Variations in Stellar Clustering with Environment: Dispersed Star Formation and the Origin of Faint Fuzzies
• PHANGS CO kinematics: disk orientations and rotation curves at 150 pc resolution
• Giant Molecular Cloud Catalogues for PHANGS-ALMA: Methods and Initial Results
• Observational Evidence of Dynamic Star Formation Rate in Milky Way Giant Molecular Clouds
• Star Cluster Demographics. I. A General Framework and Application to the Antennae Galaxies
• The distinction between star clusters and associations
• The Cepheid Distance to NGC 1637: A Direct Test of the EPM Distance to SN 1999em
• GMC formation by agglomeration and self gravity
• Winds and radiation in unison: a new semi-analytic feedback model for cloud dissolution
• The Luminosity, Mass, and Age Distributions of Compact Star Clusters in M83 Based on HST/WFC3 Observations
• The Nuclear Structure in Nearby Luminous Infrared Galaxies: HST NICMOS Imaging of the GOALS Sample
• The formation of molecular clouds in spiral galaxies
• The molecular cloud lifecycle
• Action Dynamics of the Local Supercluster
• Cosmicflows 4: The Calibration of Optical and Infrared Tully-Fisher Relations
• A 50 pc scale view of star formation efficiency across NGC 628
• New Tests for Disruption Mechanisms of Star Clusters: The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
• Cosmicflows-3: Two Distance$-$Velocity Calculators
• The Extragalactic Distance Database: The Color-Magnitude Diagrams and Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances Catalog
• Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury XVI. Star Cluster Formation Efficiency and the Clustered Fraction of Young Stars
• Connecting Young Star Clusters to CO Molecular Gas in NGC 7793 with ALMA-LEGUS
• The Spatial Relation between Young Star Clusters and Molecular Clouds in M 51 with LEGUS
• OB associations and their origins
• Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury XVIII. The High-mass Truncation of the Star Cluster Mass Function
• Effective Radii of Young, Massive Star Clusters in Two LEGUS Galaxies
• The Hierarchical Distribution of the Young Stellar Clusters in Six Local Star Forming Galaxies
• Not all stars form in clusters -- $Gaia$-DR2 uncovers the origin of OB associations
• The origin of physical variations in the star formation law
• Physical Processes in Star Formation
• Star cluster formation in the most extreme environments: Insights from the HiPEEC survey
• PHAT Stellar Cluster Survey. II. Andromeda Project Cluster Catalog
• Formation of Molecular Clouds and Global Conditions for Star Formation
• The Brightest Young Star Clusters in NGC 5253
• Measuring the mixing scale of the ISM within nearby spiral galaxies
• Not all stars form in clusters - measuring the kinematics of OB associations with $Gaia$
• Hubble Space Telescope ACS Imaging of the GOALS Sample: Quantitative Structural Properties of Nearby Luminous Infrared Galaxies with L_IR > 10^{11.4} L_sun
• The Young Star Cluster population of M51 with LEGUS: I. A comprehensive study of cluster formation and evolution
• A Robust Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance to the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946)
• The Fraction of Stars That Form in Clusters in Different Galaxies
• Star Cluster Catalogs for the LEGUS Dwarf Galaxies
• Evolution of Stellar Feedback in HII Regions
• PHANGS-HST: Star Cluster Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting with CIGALE
• SN 2012ec: mass of the progenitor from PESSTO follow-up of the photospheric phase
• Deep Transfer Learning for Star Cluster Classification: I. Application to the PHANGS-HST Survey
• Star Cluster Classification in the PHANGS-HST Survey: Comparison between Human and Machine Learning Approaches
• PHANGS-HST: New Methods for Star Cluster Identification in Nearby Galaxies
• Star Cluster Mass and Age Distributions of Two Fields in M83 Based on HST/WFC3 Observations
• Star-forming Clumps in Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Star formation histories of the LEGUS dwarf galaxies (III): the non-bursty nature of 23 star forming dwarf galaxies
• A model for the onset of self-gravitation and star formation in molecular gas governed by galactic forces: II. the bottleneck to collapse set by cloud-environment decoupling
• Massive Star Cluster Formation and Destruction in Luminous Infrared Galaxies in GOALS
• Star Formation Histories of the LEGUS Dwarf Galaxies (I): recent History of NGC1705, NGC4449 and Holmberg II
• Star Formation Histories of the LEGUS dwarf galaxies. II. Spatially resolved star formation history of the Magellanic irregular NGC 4449
• The Hubble constant from ${}^{56}$Co-powered Nebular Candles
• StarcNet: Machine Learning for Star Cluster Identification
• Mapping electron temperature variations across a spiral arm in NGC 1672

Cited by in corpus (87)

• The PHANGS-MUSE survey -- Probing the chemo-dynamical evolution of disc galaxies
• The PHANGS-JWST Treasury Survey: Star Formation, Feedback, and Dust Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS
• Molecular Cloud Populations in the Context of Their Host Galaxy Environments: A Multiwavelength Perspective
• The PHANGS-MUSE Nebula Catalogue
• Environmental dependence of the molecular cloud lifecycle in 54 main sequence galaxies
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: A statistical view on bubble evolution in NGC628
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Destruction of the PAH molecules in HII regions probed by JWST and MUSE
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Multi-wavelength view of feedback-driven bubbles (The Phantom Voids) across NGC 628
• Comparing the pre-SNe feedback and environmental pressures for 6000 HII regions across 19 nearby spiral galaxies
• Introducing EMP-Pathfinder: modelling the simultaneous formation and evolution of stellar clusters in their host galaxies
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Mapping the 3.3 micron Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Vibrational Band in Nearby Galaxies with NIRCam Medium Bands
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Massive Young Star Clusters and New Insights from JWST Observations of NGC 1365
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Duration of the early phase of massive star formation in NGC628
• Quantifying the energetics of molecular superbubbles in PHANGS galaxies
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Rapid Evolution of Star Formation in the Central Molecular Gas Ring of NGC1365
• H$\alpha$ Morphologies of Star Clusters in 16 LEGUS Galaxies: Constraints on HII region evolution timescales
• Dense molecular gas properties on 100 pc scales across the disc of NGC 3627
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies II. Resolved Distributions of CO and H$\alpha$ Emission for 49 PHANGS Galaxies
• Variations in the ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}-{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{mol}}-{\Sigma }_{\star }$ plane across galactic environments in PHANGS galaxies
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: The Dust Filament Network of NGC 628 and its Relation to Star Formation Activity
• Linking stellar populations to HII regions across nearby galaxies: I. Constraining pre-supernova feedback from young clusters in NGC1672
• PHANGS--JWST First Results: ISM structure on the turbulent Jeans scale in four disk galaxies observed by JWST and ALMA
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: The 21 $\mu$m Compact Source Population
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: The Influence of Stellar Clusters on PAHs in Nearby Galaxies
• Improving Star Cluster Age Estimates in PHANGS-HST Galaxies and the Impact on Cluster Demographics in NGC 628
• Fuelling the nuclear ring of NGC 1097
• Dissecting Nearby Galaxies with piXedfit: I. Spatially Resolved Properties of Stars, Dust, and Gas as Revealed by Panchromatic SED Fitting
• Stellar associations powering HII regions $\unicode{x2013}$ I. Defining an evolutionary sequence
• Role of magnetic fields in fueling Seyfert nuclei
• PHANGS: Constraining Star Formation Timescales Using the Spatial Correlations of Star Clusters and Giant Molecular Clouds
• Empirically-motivated early feedback: momentum input by stellar feedback in galaxy simulations inferred through observations
• Identifying the SN 2022acko progenitor with JWST
• Quantifying the energy balance between the turbulent ionised gas and young stars
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Stellar Feedback-Driven Excitation and Dissociation of Molecular Gas in the Starburst Ring of NGC 1365?
• The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury: Triangulum Extended Region (PHATTER). IV. Star Cluster Catalog
• Multi-Scale Stellar Associations across the Star Formation Hierarchy in PHANGS-HST Nearby Galaxies: Methodology and Properties
• Star Cluster Classification using Deep Transfer Learning with PHANGS-HST
• Molecular gas and star formation within 12 strong galactic bars observed with IRAM-30m
• The Galactic neutron star population I - an extragalactic view of the Milky Way and the implications for fast radio bursts
• Metallicity calibrations based on auroral lines from PHANGS-MUSE data
• The PHANGS-HST-Halpha Survey: Warm Ionized Gas Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS with the Hubble Space Telescope
• A Deep, High-Angular Resolution 3D Dust Map of the Southern Galactic Plane
• Rubin Observatory LSST Stars Milky Way and Local Volume Star Clusters Roadmap
• Empirical SED Templates for Star Clusters Observed with HST and JWST: No Strong PAH or IR Dust Emission after Five Myr
• Linking stellar populations to HII regions across nearby galaxies. II. Infrared Reprocessed and UV Direct Radiation Pressure in HII Regions
• A physically motivated `charge-exchange method' for measuring electron temperatures within HII regions
• Origins of the Evil Eye: M64's Stellar Halo Reveals the Recent Accretion of an SMC-mass Satellite
• A Tale of 3 Dwarfs: No Extreme Cluster Formation in Extreme Star-Forming Galaxies
• Living on the edge of the Central Molecular Zone: G1.3 is the more likely candidate for gas accretion into the CMZ
• Necessary conditions for the formation of filaments and star clusters in the cold neutral medium
• PHANGS-HST: Globular Cluster Systems in 17 Nearby Spiral Galaxies
• Constraining the LyC escape fraction from LEGUS star clusters with SIGNALS HII region observations: A pilot study of NGC 628
• CI and CO in Nearby Spiral Galaxies -- I. Line Ratio and Abundance Variations at ~ 200 pc Scales
• The PHANGS-MUSE/HST-Halpha Nebulae Catalogue
• Growing a nuclear star cluster from star formation and cluster mergers: The JWST NIRSpec view of NGC 4654
• J-PLUS: Spectroscopic validation of H$\alpha$ emission line maps in spatially resolved galaxies
• The X-ray Binary-Star Cluster Connection in Late-Type Galaxies
• Duration and properties of the embedded phase of star formation in 37 nearby galaxies from PHANGS-JWST
• Decoding NGC 628 with radiative transfer methods
• A 260 pc resolution ALMA map of HCN(1-0) in the galaxy NGC 4321
• PAH Marks the Spot: Digging for Buried Clusters in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies
• Infrared bubble recognition in the Milky Way and beyond using deep learning
• A power spectral study of PHANGS galaxies with JWST MIRI: On the spatial scales of dust and PAHs
• Physical parameters of stellar population in star formation regions of galaxies
• Simulating nearby disc galaxies on the main star formation sequence II. The gas structure transition in low and high stellar mass discs
• Galactic properties that favour star cluster formation: a statistical view
• Clump formation in ram-pressure stripped galaxies: evidence from mass function
• A stellar stream around the spiral galaxy Messier 61 in Rubin First Look imaging
• Galactic Component Mapping of Galaxy UGC 2885 by Machine Learning Classification
• MIRACLE II: Unveiling the multi-phase gas interplay in the circumnuclear region of NGC 1365 via multi-cloud modeling
• Cloud populations versus galactic environment in NGC4689, NGC628, NGC1566, and NGC4321
• A normalizing flow approach for the inference of star cluster properties from unresolved broadband photometry I: Comparison to spectral energy distribution fitting
• Metal-THINGS: gas metallicity gradients in nearby galaxies
• Massive Star Clusters in the Semi-Analytical Galaxy Formation Model L-Galaxies 2020
• Deriving physical parameters of unresolved star clusters. VIII. Limits of aperture photometry for star cluster studies
• Clusters, Clumps, Dust, & Gas (CCDG) in NGC1614: Bench-marking Cluster Demographics in Extreme Systems
• Parameters of Star Formation Regions in Galaxies NGC 3963 and NGC 7292
• Which Molecular Cloud Structures Are Bound?
• Star Cluster Populations in 38 Spiral Galaxies: Evidence for Near-Universal Mass and Age Distributions from PHANGS
• Discovery of young, oxygen-rich supernova remnants in PHANGS-MUSE galaxies
• Optical Extinctions of Inter-Arm Molecular Clouds in M31: A Pilot Study for the Upcoming CSST Observations
• Stellar associations powering HII regions $\unicode{x2013}$ II. Escape fraction of ionizing photons
• Investigating the young stellar populations and hierarchies in nearby galaxies with the UVIT. II. Presenting the properties of ~25,000 UV-detected star-forming clumps
• Bar-driven gas redistribution suppresses star formation in spiral galaxies: Evidence from dust lanes in NGC 3351
• TONGS: A Treasury Of Nearby Galaxy Surveys
• PHANGS-MUSE: the HII region luminosity function of local star-forming galaxies
• A Dynamic Galaxy: Stellar Age Patterns Across the Disk of M101