Testing Photometric Techniques for Measuring the Rest-Frame UV Spectral Slope Against JWST PRISM Spectroscopy

Abstract

We present a sample of 53 galaxy spectra at z_spec ~ 5-12 from the JWST CEERS and RUBIES surveys, combining NIRSpec PRISM spectroscopy with NIRCam photometry. We aim to use these data to establish best practices for measuring the UV spectral slope ($\beta$) in the era of JWST. We adopt power-law fits to the rest-frame UV continuum from the spectroscopic data as our fiducial, or `true', $\beta$ values, and compare them to photometric estimates derived through four methods: (1) photometric power-law fitting, (2) power-law fitting to an SED model fitted to the photometry, (3) single-color fitting near the Lyman break, and (4) single-color fitting at fixed rest-frame wavelengths. We find that photometric power-law fitting most closely recovers the spectroscopic slopes, with minimal bias and scatter. SED fitting performs moderately well, and can be preferable in cases of low signal-to-noise where photometric power-law fitting may become unreliable. Single-color estimates, while commonly used in past studies, show the most significant deviations and are not recommended when more than a single color is available. Our results highlight the limitations and strengths of each approach and provide practical guidance for measuring $\beta$ from photometry when spectra are unavailable or are of insufficient quality.

10 pages, 3 figures, published to ApJ

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