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Exploring the evolution of star formation and dwarf galaxy properties with JWST/MIRI serendipitous spectroscopic surveys

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(2017)cite arxiv:1701.07239Comment: 31 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ.

Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope's Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MRS), will offer nearly 2 orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity and >3X improvement in spectral resolution over our previous space-based mid-IR spectrometer, the Spitzer IRS. In this paper, we make predictions for spectroscopic pointed observations and serendipitous detections with the MRS. Specifically, pointed observations of Herschel sources require only a few minutes on source integration for detections of several star-forming and active galactic nucleus lines, out to z$=$3 and beyond. But the same data will also include tens of serendipitous 0$łesssim$z$łesssim$4 galaxies per field with infrared luminosities ranging $\sim10^6-10^13$L$_ødot$. In particular, for the first time and for free we will be able to explore the $L_IR<10^9L_ødot$ regime out to $z\sim3$. We estimate that with $\sim$100 such fields, statistics of these detections will be sufficient to constrain the evolution of the low-$L$ end of the infrared luminosity function, and hence the star formation rate function. The above conclusions hold for a wide range in potential low-$L$ end of the IR luminosity function, and accounting for the PAH deficit in low-$L$, low-metallicity galaxies.

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