The Science Program

The WFC3 SOC has developed a science program that focuses on the theme "Star Formation, Near and Far". The observations fall under two broad categories. The first category includes a series of multi-waveband imaging observations that target star-forming regions in nearby galaxies, ranging from 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud to M82, the nearest starburst galaxy. The second arm of the program probes star formation at intermediate redshifts (1 < z < 2) through moderately deep multi-wavelength imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy covering ~30% of the GOODS Chandra Deep Field South. Both programs build on previous ACS observations and use the panchromatic capabilities of WFC3 to extend coverage to ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths.

An overview of the scientific rationale underlying the full observing program is given in this pdf file (very large), an updated version of a presentation made to the Space Telescope Users Committee (STUC) in April 2007. Further details of the observations are given in the Phase I proposals, linked from here Nearby Galaxies and here GOODS CDFS.

Relevant References

• "Supernova remnants, planetary nebulae and the distance to NGC 4214"
  Dopita, Michael A. et al  2010Ap&SS.330..123D

• "Supernova Remnants and the Interstellar Medium of M83: Imaging and Photometry with the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope"
  Dopita, Michael A. et al  2010ApJ...710..964D

• "Estimating Luminosity Function Constraints from High-Redshift Galaxy Surveys"
  Robertson, Brant E. et al  2010ApJ...713.1266R

• "SN 2010U: A Luminous Nova in NGC 4214"
  Humphreys, Roberta M. et al  2010ApJ...718L..43H

• "The Luminosity, Mass, and Age Distributions of Compact Star Clusters in M83 Based on Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 Observations"
  Chandar, Rupali et al  2010ApJ...719..966C

• "Progressive Star Formation in the Young Galactic Super Star Cluster NGC 3603"
  Beccari, Giacomo et al  2010ApJ...720.1108B

• "UV-dropout Galaxies in the Goods-South Field from WFC3 Early Release Science Observations"
  Hathi, N. P. et al  2010ApJ...720.1708H

• "The Luminosity Function of Lyα Emitters at Redshift z = 7.7"
  Tilvi, Vithal et al  2010ApJ...721.1853T

• "The Lack of Intense Lyα in Ultradeep Spectra of z = 7 Candidates in GOODS-S: Imprint of Reionization?"
  Fontana, A. et al  2010ApJ...725L.205F

• "Probing ~L* Lyman-break galaxies at z ~ 7 in GOODS-South with WFC3 on Hubble Space Telescope"
  Wilkins, Stephen M. et al  2010MNRAS.403..938W

• "The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey. I. Introduction and observational overview"
  Evans, C. J. et al  2011A&A...530A.108E

• "A critical analysis of the UV luminosity function at redshift ~7 from deep WFC3 data"
  Grazian, A. et al  2011A&A...532A..33G

• "Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 Early Release Science: Emission-line Galaxies from Infrared Grism Observations"
  Straughn, Amber N. et al  2011AJ....141...14S

• "A Two-dimensional Map of the Color Excess in NGC 3603"
  Pang, Xiaoying et al  2011AJ....142..132P

• "Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Circumnuclear Star Clusters in M83"
  Wofford, Aida et al  2011ApJ...727..100W

• "Anatomy of a Post-starburst Minor Merger: A Multi-wavelength WFC3 Study of NGC 4150"
  Crockett, R. Mark et al  2011ApJ...727..115C

• "HST WFC3/IR Observations of Active Galactic Nucleus Host Galaxies at z ~ 2: Supermassive Black Holes Grow in Disk Galaxies"
  Schawinski, Kevin et al  2011ApJ...727L..31S

• "Using Hα Morphology and Surface Brightness Fluctuations to Age-date Star Clusters in M83"
  Whitmore, Bradley C. et al  2011ApJ...729...78W

• "Detection of Brown Dwarf Like Objects in the Core of NGC 3603"
  Spezzi, Loredana et al  2011ApJ...731....1S

• "Large-scale Shock-ionized and Photoionized Gas in M83: The Impact of Star Formation"
  Hong, Sungryong et al  2011ApJ...731...45H

• "Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of Lyα Emission at z â?? 4.4"
  Finkelstein, Steven L. et al  2011ApJ...735....5F

• "The ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury. VII. The NGC 4214 Starburst and the Effects of Star Formation History on Dwarf Morphology"
  Williams, Benjamin F. et al  2011ApJ...735...22W

• "Ultraviolet Luminosity Functions from 132 z ~ 7 and z ~ 8 Lyman-break Galaxies in the Ultra-deep HUDF09 and Wide-area Early Release Science WFC3/IR Observations"
  Bouwens, R. J. et al  2011ApJ...737...90B

• "On Star Formation Rates and Star Formation Histories of Galaxies Out to z ~ 3"
  Wuyts, Stijn et al  2011ApJ...738..106W

• "Star Formation in 30 Doradus"
  De Marchi, Guido et al  2011ApJ...739...27D

• "Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Field Ultracool Dwarfs at High Galactic Latitude"
  Ryan, R. E. et al  2011ApJ...739...83R

• "AGN Unification at z ~ 1: u - R Colors and Gradients in X-Ray AGN Hosts"
  Ammons, S. Mark et al  2011ApJ...740....3A

• "The Relative Abundance of Compact and Normal Massive Early-type Galaxies and Its Evolution from Redshift z ~ 2 to the Present"
  Cassata, P. et al  2011ApJ...743...96C

• "The Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Early Release Science Data: Panchromatic Faint Object Counts for 0.2-2 μm Wavelength"
  Windhorst, Rogier A. et al  2011ApJS..193...27W

• "The Massive Star Content of Circumnuclear Star Clusters in M83"
  Wofford, A. et al  2011ASPC..440..143W

• "Resolved Stars in M83 Based on HST/WFC3 Early Release Science Observations"
  Kim, H. et al  2011ASPC..440..149K

• "Luminous Stars in Galaxies Beyond 3 Mpc"
  Whitmore, B. C. et al  2011ASPC..440..161W

• "Evolution of the NIR Morphologies of Disk Galaxies since zË?1: A `Glance' into GOODS-South with HST-WFC3"
  Azzollini, R. et al  2011ASPC..446..297A

• "FUV and UVIS observations of circumnuclear star clusters in M83"
  Wofford, Aida et al  2011BSRSL..80..445W

• "New star-forming galaxies at zâ?? 7 from Wide Field Camera Three imaging"
  Wilkins, Stephen M. et al  2011MNRAS.411...23W

• "Star-forming galaxies at zâ?? 8-9 from Hubble Space Telescope/WFC3: implications for reionization"
  Lorenzoni, Silvio et al  2011MNRAS.414.1455L

• "Evidence for environmentally dependent cluster disruption in M83"
  Bastian, N. et al  2011MNRAS.417L...6B

• "A robust sample of galaxies at redshifts 6.0"
  McLure, R. J. et al  2011MNRAS.418.2074M

• "On the association of ULXs with young superclusters: M82 X-1 and a new candidate in NGC 7479"
  Voss, R. et al  2011MNRAS.418L.124V

• "A candidate redshift z~10 galaxy and rapid changes in that population at an age of 500Myr"
  Bouwens, R. J. et al  2011Natur.469..504B

• "Constraining stellar feedback: Ionized gas structures in local starburst galaxies"
  Hong, Sungryong et al  2011PhDT.......155H

• "Clustering of Stars in Nearby Galaxies: Probing the Range of Stellar Structures"
  Kaleida, Catherine et al  2011PhDT.......244K

• "Faint high-redshift AGN in the Chandra deep field south: the evolution of the AGN luminosity function and black hole demography"
  Fiore, F. et al  2012A&A...537A..16F

• "The evolving slope of the stellar mass function at 0.6 <= z < 4.5 from deep WFC3 data"
  Santini, P. et al  2012A&A...538A..33S

• "The blue UV slopes of z ~ 4 Lyman break galaxies: implications for the corrected star formation rate density"
  Castellano, M. et al  2012A&A...540A..39C

• "The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey. IV. Candidates for isolated high-mass star formation in 30 Doradus"
  Bressert, E. et al  2012A&A...542A..49B

• "The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey. VII. A low velocity dispersion for the young massive cluster R136"
  Henault-Brunet, V. et al  2012A&A...546A..73H

• "The size-luminosity relation at z = 7 in CANDELS and its implication on reionization"
  Grazian, A. et al  2012A&A...547A..51G

• "Metallicities of Emission-line Galaxies from HST ACS PEARS and HST WFC3 ERS Grism Spectroscopy at 0.6 < z < 2.4"
  Xia, Lifang et al  2012AJ....144...28X

• "The Road to the Red Sequence: A Detailed View of the Formation of a Massive Galaxy at z ~ 2"
  Ferreras, Ignacio et al  2012AJ....144...47F

• "Star formation in the starburst cluster in NGC 3603"
  Correnti, Matteo et al  2012Ap&SS.340..263C

• "Expanded Search for z ~ 10 Galaxies from HUDF09, ERS, and CANDELS Data: Evidence for Accelerated Evolution at z > 8?"
  Oesch, P. A. et al  2012ApJ...745..110O

• "A Link to the Past: Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Fitting to Constrain Fundamental Parameters of High-redshift Galaxies"
  Pirzkal, N. et al  2012ApJ...748..122P

• "The Evolution of the Rest-frame V-band Luminosity Function from z = 4: A Constant Faint-end Slope over the Last 12 Gyr of Cosmic History"
  Marchesini, Danilo et al  2012ApJ...748..126M

• "The Size Evolution of Passive Galaxies: Observations from the Wide-Field Camera 3 Early Release Science Program"
  Ryan, R. E., Jr. et al  2012ApJ...749...53R

• "Rest-frame UV-Optically Selected Galaxies at 2.3 <~ z <~ 3.5: Searching for Dusty Star-forming and Passively Evolving Galaxies"
  Guo, Yicheng et al  2012ApJ...749..149G

• "Analyzing Star Cluster Populations with Stochastic Models: The Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 Sample of Clusters in M83"
  Fouesneau, Morgan et al  2012ApJ...750...60F

• "Late-time Optical Emission from Core-collapse Supernovae"
  Milisavljevic, Dan et al  2012ApJ...751...25M

• "Passive and Star-forming Galaxies at 1.4 <= z <= 2.5 in the AEGIS Field"
  Fang, Guanwen et al  2012ApJ...751..109F

• "CANDELS: Correlations of Spectral Energy Distributions and Morphologies with Star formation Status for Massive Galaxies at z ~ 2"
  Wang, Tao et al  2012ApJ...752..134W

• "Lower-luminosity Galaxies Could Reionize the Universe: Very Steep Faint-end Slopes to the UV Luminosity Functions at z >= 5-8 from the HUDF09 WFC3/IR Observations"
  Bouwens, R. J. et al  2012ApJ...752L...5B

• "The Resolved Stellar Population in 50 Regions of M83 from HST/WFC3 Early Release Science Observations"
  Kim, Hwihyun et al  2012ApJ...753...26K

• "Smooth(er) Stellar Mass Maps in CANDELS: Constraints on the Longevity of Clumps in High-redshift Star-forming Galaxies"
  Wuyts, Stijn et al  2012ApJ...753..114W

• "UV-continuum Slopes at z ~ 4-7 from the HUDF09+ERS+CANDELS Observations: Discovery of a Well-defined UV Color-Magnitude Relationship for z >= 4 Star-forming Galaxies"
  Bouwens, R. J. et al  2012ApJ...754...83B

• "A Double Cluster at the Core of 30 Doradus"
  Sabbi, E. et al  2012ApJ...754L..37S

• "The Rest-frame UV-to-optical Colors and Spectral Energy Distributions of z ~ 4-7 Galaxies"
  Gonzalez, Valentino et al  2012ApJ...755..148G

• "Recovery of the Historical SN1957D in X-Rays with Chandra"
  Long, Knox S. et al  2012ApJ...756...18L

• "Candels: The Evolution of Galaxy Rest-frame Ultraviolet Colors from z = 8 to 4"
  Finkelstein, Steven L. et al  2012ApJ...756..164F

• "The Evolution of Mass-Size Relation for Lyman Break Galaxies from z = 1 to z = 7"
  Mosleh, Moein et al  2012ApJ...756L..12M

• "GOODS-Herschel and CANDELS: The Morphologies of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies at z ~ 2"
  Kartaltepe, Jeyhan S. et al  2012ApJ...757...23K

• "CANDELS: The Contribution of the Observed Galaxy Population to Cosmic Reionization"
  Finkelstein, Steven L. et al  2012ApJ...758...93F

• "The Bright End of the Ultraviolet Luminosity Function at z ~ 8: New Constraints from CANDELS Data in GOODS-South"
  Oesch, P. A. et al  2012ApJ...759..135O

• "A Panchromatic Catalog of Early-type Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift in the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Early Release Science Field"
  Rutkowski, M. J. et al  2012ApJS..199....4R

• "Structural Parameters of Galaxies in CANDELS"
  van der Wel, A. et al  2012ApJS..203...24V

• "Stellar clusters in M83: formation, evolution, disruption and the influence of the environment"
  Bastian, N. et al  2012MNRAS.419.2606B

• "A critical analysis of the ultraviolet continuum slopes (β) of high-redshift galaxies: no evidence (yet) for extreme stellar populations at z > 6"
  Dunlop, J. S. et al  2012MNRAS.420..901D

• "Triggered star formation in the inner filament of Centaurus A"
  Crockett, R. Mark et al  2012MNRAS.421.1603C

• "A WFC3 study of globular clusters in NGC 4150: an early-type minor merger"
  Kaviraj, Sugata et al  2012MNRAS.422L..96K

• "Spatially resolved colours and stellar population properties in early-type galaxies at z Ë? 1.5"
  Gargiulo, A. et al  2012MNRAS.425.2698G

• "Constraining stellar assembly and active galactic nucleus feedback at the peak epoch of star formation"
  Kimm, T. et al  2012MNRAS.425L..96K

• "The UV Luminosity Function of zË? 7 galaxies from wide and deep HST and ESO/VLT surveys "
  Grazian, A. et al  2012MSAIS..19..284G

• "Evolution of Intermediate Redshift Galaxies Physical Properties and Mass-Metallicity Relation"
  Xia, Lifang et al  2012PhDT.........7X

• "The dust SED of dwarf galaxies. I. The case of NGC 4214"
  Hermelo, I. et al  2013A&A...549A..70H

• "The X-Ray Star Formation Story as Told by Lyman Break Galaxies in the 4 Ms CDF-S"
  Basu-Zych, Antara R. et al  2013ApJ...762...45B

• "Shape Evolution of Massive Early-type Galaxies: Confirmation of Increased Disk Prevalence at z > 1"
  Chang, Yu-Yen et al  2013ApJ...762...83C

• "X-Ray Selected AGN Host Galaxies are Similar to Inactive Galaxies out to z = 3: Results from CANDELS/CDF-S"
  Rosario, D. J. et al  2013ApJ...763...59R

• "Keck Spectroscopy of 3 < z < 7 Faint Lyman Break Galaxies: The Importance of Nebular Emission in Understanding the Specific Star Formation Rate and Stellar Mass Density"
  Stark, Daniel P. et al  2013ApJ...763..129S

• "Stellar Populations of Lyman Break Galaxies at z ~= 1-3 in the HST/WFC3 Early Release Science Observations"
  Hathi, N. P. et al  2013ApJ...765...88H

• "An Initial Mass Function Study of the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC 4214"
  Andrews, J. E. et al  2013ApJ...767...51A

• "The Millennium Run Observatory: first light"
  Overzier, R. et al  2013MNRAS.428..778O

• "Newborn spheroids at high redshift: when and how did the dominant, old stars in today's massive galaxies form?"
  Kaviraj, S. et al  2013MNRAS.428..925K

• "On the association between core-collapse supernovae and H ii regions"
  Crowther, Paul A. et al  2013MNRAS.428.1927C

• "The unbiased measurement of ultraviolet spectral slopes in low-luminosity galaxies at z â?? 7"
  Rogers, A. B. et al  2013MNRAS.429.2456R

• "The insignificance of major mergers in driving star formation at z â?? 2"
  Kaviraj, S. et al  2013MNRAS.429L..40K

• "Age dating stellar populations in the near infrared: an absolute age indicator from the presence/absence of red supergiants"
  Gazak, J. Z. et al  2013MNRAS.430L..35G