The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope II. Multi-object spectroscopy (MOS)

Abstract

We provide an overview of the capabilities and performance of the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) when used in its multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) mode employing a novel Micro Shutter Array (MSA) slit device. The MSA consists of four separate 98 arcsec $\times$ 91 arcsec quadrants each containing $365\times 171$ individually addressable shutters whose open areas on the sky measure 0.20 arcsec $\times$ 0.46 arcsec on a 0.27 arcsec $\times$ 0.53 arcsec pitch. This is the first time that a configurable multi-object spectrograph has been available on a space mission. The levels of multiplexing achievable with NIRSpec MOS mode are quantified and we show that NIRSpec will be able to observe typically fifty to two hundred objects simultaneously with the pattern of close to a quarter of a million shutters provided by the MSA. This pattern is fixed and regular, and we identify the specific constraints that it yields for NIRSpec observation planning. We also present the data processing and calibration steps planned for the NIRSpec MOS data. The significant variation in size of the mostly diffraction-limited instrument point spread function over the large wavelength range of 0.6-5.3 $\mu$m covered by the instrument, combined with the fact that most targets observed with the MSA cannot be expected to be perfectly centred within their respective slits, makes the spectrophotometric and wavelength calibration of the obtained spectra particularly complex. These challenges notwithstanding, the sensitivity and multiplexing capabilities anticipated of NIRSpec in MOS mode are unprecedented, and should enable significant progress to be made in addressing a wide range of outstanding astrophysical problems.

Accepted for publication in A&A. 16 pages, 14 figure

References in corpus (3)

• The James Webb Space Telescope
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope III. Integral-field spectroscopy
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope IV. Capabilities and predicted performance for exoplanet characterization

Cited by in corpus (98)

• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope I. Overview of the instrument and its capabilities
• The James Webb Space Telescope Mission
• The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning
• JADES NIRSpec Spectroscopy of GN-z11: Lyman-$\alpha$ emission and possible enhanced nitrogen abundance in a $z=10.60$ luminous galaxy
• A CEERS Discovery of an Accreting Supermassive Black Hole 570 Myr after the Big Bang: Identifying a Progenitor of Massive z > 6 Quasars
• JADES. The diverse population of infant Black Holes at 4<z<11: merging, tiny, poor, but mighty
• Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec PRISM
• The chemical enrichment in the early Universe as probed by JWST via direct metallicity measurements at z~8
• The GLASS James Webb Space Telescope Early Release Science Program. I. Survey Design and Release Plans
• Spectroscopic confirmation of two luminous galaxies at $z\sim 14$
• Confirmation and refutation of very luminous galaxies in the early universe
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope III. Integral-field spectroscopy
• Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of CEERS NIRCam-selected Galaxies at $\mathbf{z}\simeq 8-10$
• In-orbit Performance of the Near-Infrared Spectrograph NIRSpec on the James Webb Space Telescope
• JADES NIRSpec Initial Data Release for the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Redshifts and Line Fluxes of Distant Galaxies from the Deepest JWST Cycle 1 NIRSpec Multi-Object Spectroscopy
• JADES: Probing interstellar medium conditions at $z\sim 5.5-9.5$ with ultra-deep JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy
• CEERS Spectroscopic Confirmation of NIRCam-Selected z > 8 Galaxy Candidates with JWST/NIRSpec: Initial Characterization of their Properties
• Most of the photons that reionized the Universe came from dwarf galaxies
• JWST NIRCam+NIRSpec: Interstellar medium and stellar populations of young galaxies with rising star formation and evolving gas reservoirs
• A First Look at the Abundance Pattern -- O/H, C/O, and Ne/O -- in $z>7$ Galaxies with JWST/NIRSpec
• SO2, silicate clouds, but no CH4 detected in a warm Neptune
• RUBIES: Evolved Stellar Populations with Extended Formation Histories at $z\sim 7-8$ in Candidate Massive Galaxies Identified with JWST/NIRSpec
• Detection of stellar light from quasar host galaxies at redshifts above 6
• The Physical Conditions of Emission-Line Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn from JWST/NIRSpec Spectroscopy in the SMACS 0723 Early Release Observations
• JWST UNCOVER: Extremely red and compact object at$z_{\mathrm{phot}}\simeq 7.6$ triply imaged by Abell 2744
• A massive galaxy that formed its stars at $z\sim 11$
• UNCOVERing the extended strong lensing structures of Abell 2744 with the deepest JWST imaging
• RUBIES: a complete census of the bright and red distant Universe with JWST/NIRSpec
• Fast-moving stars around an intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauri
• Carbonaceous dust grains seen in the first billion years of cosmic time
• JADES: Detecting [OIII]$\lambda 4363$ Emitters and Testing Strong Line Calibrations in the High-$z$ Universe with Ultra-deep JWST/NIRSpec Spectroscopy up to $z\sim 9.5$
• JADES: A large population of obscured, narrow line AGN at high redshift
• JADES: Carbon enrichment 350 Myr after the Big Bang in a gas-rich galaxy
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope IV. Capabilities and predicted performance for exoplanet characterization
• JWST-JADES. Possible Population III signatures at z=10.6 in the halo of GN-z11
• First Insights into the ISM at $z>8$ with JWST: Possible Physical Implications of a High [O III]$\lambda 4363$/[O III]$\lambda 5007$
• JADES: The incidence rate and properties of galactic outflows in low-mass galaxies across 3 < z < 9
• High-z galaxies with JWST and local analogues -- it is not only star formation
• Early results from GLASS-JWST. V: the first rest-frame optical size-luminosity relation of galaxies at $z>7$
• JWST Reveals Widespread AGN-Driven Neutral Gas Outflows in Massive z ~ 2 Galaxies
• An extremely metal poor star complex in the reionization era: Approaching Population III stars with JWST
• JADES: Discovery of extremely high equivalent width Lyman-alpha emission from a faint galaxy within an ionized bubble at z=7.3
• The ionising photon production efficiency at z~6 for Lyman-alpha emitters using JEMS and MUSE
• New AGN diagnostic diagrams based on the [OIII]$\lambda 4363$ auroral line
• Witnessing the onset of reionisation via Lyman-$\alpha$ emission at redshift 13
• Nucleosynthesis and observation of the heaviest elements
• Paschen-line Constraints on Dust Attenuation and Star Formation at z~1-3 with JWST/NIRSpec
• Seven wonders of Cosmic Dawn: JWST confirms a high abundance of galaxies and AGNs at z $\simeq$ 9-11 in the GLASS field
• Reionization and the ISM/Stellar Origins with JWST and ALMA (RIOJA): The core of the highest redshift galaxy overdensity at $z=7.88$ confirmed by NIRSpec/JWST
• Galaxy Mergers in the Epoch of Reionization I: A JWST Study of Pair Fractions, Merger Rates, and Stellar Mass Accretion Rates at $z=4.5-11.5$
• Identification of High-Redshift Galaxy Overdensities in GOODS-N and GOODS-S
• A needle in a haystack? Catching Pop III stars in the Epoch of Reionization: I. Pop III star forming environments
• Atmospheric retrievals suggest the presence of a secondary atmosphere and possible sulfur species on L 98-59 d from JWST NIRSpec G395H transmission spectroscopy
• JADES: Primaeval Lyman-$\alpha$ emitting galaxies reveal early sites of reionisation out to redshift $z\sim 9$
• Investigating photometric and spectroscopic variability in the multiply-imaged Little Red Dot A2744-QSO1
• Little Red Dots or Brown Dwarfs? NIRSpec Discovery of Three Distant Brown Dwarfs Masquerading as NIRCam-Selected Highly-Reddened AGNs
• Near-infrared emission line diagnostics for AGN from the local Universe to redshift 3
• Optical and mid-infrared line emission in nearby Seyfert galaxies
• Seeing sharper and deeper: JWST's first glimpse of the photometric and spectroscopic properties of galaxies in the epoch of reionisation
• Zapped then Napped? A rapidly quenched remnant leaker candidate with a steep spectroscopic ${\beta }_{UV}$ slope at z=8.5
• The NIRSpec Wide GTO Survey
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope V. Optimal algorithms for planning multi-object spectroscopic observations
• Gas outflows in two recently quenched galaxies at z = 4 and 7
• Narrow line AGN selection in CEERS: spectroscopic selection, physical properties, X-ray and radio analysis
• Hitting the slopes: A spectroscopic view of UV continuum slopes of galaxies reveals a reddening at z > 9.5
• Spatially resolved emission lines in galaxies at $4\le z<10$ from the JADES survey: evidence for enhanced central star formation
• The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science Program. IV. Data release of 263 spectra from 245 unique sources
• Protoplanetary discs around sun-like stars appear to live longer when the metallicity is low
• Determining stellar accretion rates from $P{a}_{\alpha }$ and $B{r}_{\beta }$ emission lines with JWST NIRSpec
• Strong spectral features from asymptotic giant branch stars in distant quiescent galaxies
• Fast Rotators at Cosmic Noon: Stellar Kinematics for 15 Quiescent Galaxies from JWST-SUSPENSE
• JADES reveals a large population of low mass black holes at high redshift
• Detection of the 2175Å UV Bump at z>7: Evidence for Rapid Dust Evolution in a Merging Reionisation-Era Galaxy
• JADES -- The small blue bump in GN-z11: insights into the nuclear region of a galaxy at z=10.6
• JADES Data Release 4 Paper I: Sample Selection, Observing Strategy and Redshifts of the complete spectroscopic sample
• Water ice in the debris disk around HD 181327
• Galaxy Mergers in the Epoch of Reionization II: Major Merger-Triggered Star Formation and AGN Activities at $z=$ 4.5-8.5
• Physical properties of strong 1 < z < 3 Balmer and Paschen lines emitters observed with JWST
• Spectroscopic confirmation of a dust-obscured, metal-rich dwarf galaxy at z~5
• Externally irradiated young stars in NGC 3603. A JWST NIRSpec catalogue of pre-main-sequence stars in a massive star formation region
• Ionized gas metallicity of the strong [OIII]λ emission-line compact galaxies in the LAMOST survey
• New Methods of Identifying AGN in the Early Universe using Spectroscopy and Photometry in the JWST Era
• Under the magnifying glass: A combined 3D model applied to cloudy warm Saturn type exoplanets around M-dwarfs
• The Lockman-SpReSO project. Description, target selection, observations and preliminary results
• Extreme Neutral Outflow in a non-AGN Quiescent Galaxy at z~1.3
• Probing neutral outflows in z ~ 2 galaxies using JWST observations of Ca II H and K absorption lines
• Cloudy with a chance of starshine: Possible photometric signatures of nebular-dominated emission in $1.5<z<8.5$ JADES galaxies
• JADES Dark Horse: demonstrating high-multiplex observations with JWST/NIRSpec dense-shutter spectroscopy in the JADES Origins Field
• Characterising the z $\sim$ 7.66 Type-II AGN candidate SMACS S06355 using BEAGLE-AGN and JWST NIRSpec/NIRCam
• Kinematic evidence of magnetospheric accretion for Herbig Ae stars with JWST NIRSpec
• Reionization in Protocluster Environments at $z>7$ with JWST/NIRSpec
• The Cliff: A Metal-Poor Little Red Dot Hosting an Overmassive Black Hole at $z=3.55$
• First IFU observations of two GRB host galaxies at cosmic noon with JWST/NIRSpec
• High-Redshift Galactic Outflows: Orientation Effects, Kinematics, and Metallicity in TNG50 and SERRA
• On the ages of the stellar populations of galaxies at $z=0.1$-7
• Redshift ~2.7 is not special
• Evaluating star formation rates at z = 5