JWST's PEARLS: Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science: Project Overview and First Results
Creators: name: Windhorst, Rogier A.
name: Cohen, Seth H.
name: Jansen, Rolf A.
name: Summers, Jake
name: Tompkins, Scott
name: Conselice, Christopher J.
name: Driver, Simon P.
name: Yan, Haojing
name: Coe, Dan
name: Frye, Brenda
name: Grogin, Norman
name: Koekemoer, Anton
name: Marshall, Madeline A.
name: O'Brien, Rosalia
name: Pirzkal, Nor
name: Robotham, Aaron
name: Ryan,, Russell E.
name: Willmer, Christopher N. A.
name: Carleton, Timothy
name: Diego, Jose M.
name: Keel, William C.
name: Porto, Paolo
name: Redshaw, Caleb
name: Scheller, Sydney
name: Wilkins, Stephen M.
name: Willner, S. P.
name: Zitrin, Adi
name: Adams, Nathan J.
name: Austin, Duncan
name: Arendt, Richard G.
name: Beacom, John F.
name: Bhatawdekar, Rachana A.
name: Bradley, Larry D.
name: Broadhurst, Thomas J.
name: Cheng, Cheng
name: Civano, Francesca
name: Dai, Liang
name: Dole, Herve
name: D'Silva, Jordan C. J.
name: Duncan, Kenneth J.
name: Fazio, Giovanni G.
name: Ferrami, Giovanni
name: Ferreira, Leonardo
name: Finkelstein, Steven L.
name: Furtak, Lukas J.
name: Gim, Hansung B.
name: Griffiths, Alex
name: Hammel, Heidi B.
name: Harrington, Kevin C.
name: Hathi, Nimish P.
name: Holwerda, Benne W.
name: Honor, Rachel
name: Huang, Jia-Sheng
name: Hyun, Minhee
name: Im, Myungshin
name: Joshi, Bhavin A.
name: Kamieneski, Patrick S.
name: Kelly, Patrick
name: Larson, Rebecca L.
name: Li, Juno
name: Lim, Jeremy
name: Ma, Zhiyuan
name: Maksym, Peter
name: Manzoni, Giorgio
name: Meena, Ashish Kumar
name: Milam, Stefanie N.
name: Nonino, Mario
name: Pascale, Massimo
name: Pierel, Justin D. R.
name: Petric, Andreea
name: Polletta, Maria del Carmen
name: Rottgering, Huub J. A.
name: Rutkowski, Michael J.
name: Smail, Ian
name: Straughn, Amber N.
name: Strolger, Louis-Gregory
name: Swirbul, Andi
name: Trussler, James A. A.
name: Wang, Lifan
name: Welch, Brian
name: Wyithe, J. Stuart B.
name: Yun, Min
name: Zackrisson, Erik
name: Zhang, Jiashuo
name: Zhao, Xiurui
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We give an overview and describe the rationale, methods, and first results from NIRCam images of the JWST "Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science" ("PEARLS") project. PEARLS uses up to eight NIRCam filters to survey several prime extragalactic survey areas: two fields at the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP); seven gravitationally lensing clusters; two high redshift proto-clusters; and the iconic backlit VV 191 galaxy system to map its dust attenuation. PEARLS also includes NIRISS spectra for one of the NEP fields and NIRSpec spectra of two high-redshift quasars. The main goal of PEARLS is to study the epoch of galaxy assembly, AGN growth, and First Light. Five fields, the JWST NEP Time-Domain Field (TDF), IRAC Dark Field (IDF), and three lensing clusters, will be observed in up to four epochs over a year. The cadence and sensitivity of the imaging data are ideally suited to find faint variable objects such as weak AGN, high-redshift supernovae, and cluster caustic transits. Both NEP fields have sightlines through our Galaxy, providing significant numbers of very faint brown dwarfs whose proper motions can be studied. Observations from the first spoke in the NEP TDF are public. This paper presents our first PEARLS observations, their NIRCam data reduction and analysis, our first object catalogs, the 0.9-4.5 $μ$m galaxy counts and Integrated Galaxy Light. We assess the JWST sky brightness in 13 NIRCam filters, yielding our first constraints to diffuse light at 0.9-4.5 μm. PEARLS is designed to be of lasting benefit to the community.
description: Accepted to AJ, comments welcome. We ask anyone who uses our public PEARLS (NEP TDF) data to refer to this overview paper