WAVES is a massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey of 1.7 million galaxies due to commence on the VISTA telescope as part of the 4MOST Consortium’s suite of surveys.
The survey is led by a European-Australian Consortium (PIs Simon Driver, UWA & Jochen Liske, Hamburg University) and will build upon the excellent imaging data provided by two of the European Southern Observatories ongoing Public Surveys: VST KiDS and VISTA VIKING.
WAVES will provide a comprehensive and highly complete study of the galaxy populations extending to the lowest possible stellar and halo mass and flux limits locally, and to the greatest depths.
A key factor in designing WAVES is its potential for synergy with existing and upcoming facilities, including GALEX, WISE, Herschel, and in the future with additional complementary datasets from Euclid, LSST, SKA-mid, ASKAP and JWST.
The current survey design is fluid and will remain so until operations commence, but at this stage is proposed to comprise of three distinct sub-surveys WAVES-Wide, WAVES-Deep and WAVES-High (high S/N component within WAVES-Deep). WAVES-Wide covers the KiDS/VIKING regions, which WAVES-Deep covers the GAMA 23h field and WAVES-DDF four single 4MOST pointings in the LSST deep-drill regions (ELAIS-S1, XMMLSS, ECDFS and COSMOS).
Table 1: WAVES region coverage
| Name | Short Name | RA low/Cent | RA high | Dec low/Cent | Dec high | Area/deg2 | z low | z high | mag lim | N targets/million | Fibre hrs/million |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WAVES-Wide N | WW-N | 157.25 | 225.0 | -4.0 | 4.0 | ~540 | 0 | 0.2 | Z <20.8 |
~0.41 | ~0.4 |
| WAVES-Wide S | WW-S | 330.0 | 52.5 | -35.6 | -27.0 | ~700 | 0 | 0.2 | Z <21.0 |
~0.47 | ~0.4 |
| WAVES-Deep 23 | WD-23 | 339.0 | 351.0 | -35.0 | -30.0 | ~50 | 0.2 | 0.8 | Z <21.0 |
~0.55 | ~0.8 |
| WAVES-Deep 01h (ELAIS-S1) | WD-01 | 9.50 | – | -43.95 | – | ~4 | 0 | 0.8 | Z <21.0 |
~0.04 | ~0.08 |
| WAVES-Deep 02h (XMMLSS) | WD-02 | 35.875 | – | -5.025 | – | ~4 | 0 | 0.8 | Z <21.0 |
~0.04 | ~0.86 |
| WAVES-Deep 03h (ECDFS) | WD-03 | 53.125 | – | -28.1 | – | ~4 | 0 | 0.8 | Z <21.0 |
~0.04 | ~0.08 |
| WAVES-Deep 10h (COSMOS) | WD-10 | 150.125 | – | 2.20 | – | ~4 | 0 | 0.8 | Z <21.0 |
~0.04 | ~0.08 |
Whilst survey design is underway, readers should note that the numbers given here are rough guides.