Previous | Session 115 | Next | Author Index | Block Schedule
R. A. Windhorst, R. A. Jansen, S. H. Cohen (ASU), H. Yan (SSC/Caltech), C. Conselice (Univ. of Nottingham)
In this poster, we first briefly review the capabilities of the 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) --- slated for launch to a halo L2 orbit in 2013 --- including the considerations to make this an optimized infrared telescope that can deploy automatically in space.
The main science themes of JWST are to measure First Light, Reionization, Galaxy Assembly, as well as the process of Star-formation and the origin of Planetary Systems. In this poster, we will summarize how the JWST will go about measuring First Light, Reionization, and Galaxy Assembly, building on lessons learned from the Hubble Space Telescope.
We will show what more nearby galaxies observed in their restframe UV--optical light will likely look like to JWST at very high redshifts, and discuss quantitative methods to determine structural parameters of faint galaxies in deep JWST images as a function of cosmic epoch. We will also discuss to what extent JWST's short wavelength performance --- which needed to be relaxed in the latest definition of the telescope --- may affect JWST's ability to accurately determine faint galaxy parameters.
Space permitting, we will also discuss if ultradeep JWST images will run into the natural confusion limit, and what new generations of algorithms may be needed to automatically detect objects in very crowded, ultradeep JWST fields.
This work was funded by NASA JWST Interdisciplinary Scientist grant NAG5-12460 from GSFC.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to www.asu.edu/clas/hst/www/jwst/. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
Previous | Session 115 | Next
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.