The BoRG-JWST Survey: Program Overview and First Confirmations of Luminous Reionization-era Galaxies from Pure-parallel Observations

The BoRG-JWST Survey: Program Overview and First Confirmations of Luminous Reionization-era Galaxies from Pure-parallel Observations

We present the BoRG-JWST survey, a combination of two JWST Cycle 1 programs aimed at obtaining NIRSpec spectroscopy of representative, UV-bright 7 <  z  < 10 galaxy candidates across 22 independent sight lines selected from Hubble/WFC3 pure-parallel observations. We confirm the high- z nature...

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Main Authors: Guido Roberts-Borsani, Micaela Bagley, Sofía Rojas-Ruiz, Tommaso Treu, Takahiro Morishita, Steven L. Finkelstein, Michele Trenti, Pablo Arrabal Haro, Eduardo Bañados, Óscar A. Chávez Ortiz, Katherine Chworowsky, Taylor A. Hutchison, Rebecca L. Larson, Nicha Leethochawalit, Gene C. K. Leung, Charlotte Mason, Rachel S. Somerville, Massimo Stiavelli, L. Y. Aaron Yung, Susan A. Kassin, Christian Soto
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal
Subjects:
Reionization
Galaxy evolution
High-redshift galaxies
James Webb Space Telescope
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adba60
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Summary:We present the BoRG-JWST survey, a combination of two JWST Cycle 1 programs aimed at obtaining NIRSpec spectroscopy of representative, UV-bright 7 <  z  < 10 galaxy candidates across 22 independent sight lines selected from Hubble/WFC3 pure-parallel observations. We confirm the high- z nature of 12 out of 21 observed primary targets through low-resolution prism observations, with the rest revealing themselves unsurprisingly to be z  ∼ 1–3 interlopers, brown dwarfs, or yielding inconclusive results. From the Multi Shutter Array (MSA) observations, we confirm an additional nine filler sources at z  > 5, highlighting the large abundance of high-redshift galaxies even in individual WFC3 pointings. The primary sample spans the absolute magnitude range −20.4 mag <  M _UV  < −22.4 mag and harbors UV continuum slopes of β  ≃ −2.5 to −2.0, representing some of the most luminous z  > 7 sources currently known and comparable to the brightest NIRCam sources at z  > 10. Prominent [O iii ]+H β lines are found across the full sample, while a stack of sources reveals a plethora of other rest-optical lines and additional rest-UV C III ] 1909 Å emission. Despite their luminosities, none of the low-resolution spectra display evidence for type 1 active galactic nucleus activity based on a search for broad-line emission. Lastly, we present a spectroscopic data release of 188 confirmed 0.5 ≲  z  ≲ 5.0 sources from filler MSA observations, highlighting the legacy value of the survey and a representative benchmark for comparisons to deep field observations.
ISSN:1538-4357

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