A walk-through of the JWST ETC for the NIRCam WFSS Deep Galaxy Observations Example Science Program is provided, demonstrating how to select exposure parameters for this observing program. 

See also: NIRCam Wide Field Slitless Spectroscopy, JWST ETC Exposure Time Calculator Overview, Proposal Planning Video Tutorials 

The JWST Exposure Time Calculator performs signal-to-noise (SNR) calculations for the JWST observing modes. Sources of interest are defined by the user and assigned to scenes which are used by the ETC to run calculations for the requested observing mode.

After determining the exposure specifications required to meet the science goals (e.g., numbers of groups and integrations), these will be input into the Astronomer's Proposal Tool (APT) observation template, which is used to specify an observing program and submit proposals; for this example program, see the Step-by-Step APT Guide for NIRCam WFSS Deep Galaxy Observations.

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Define Sources and Scenes

See also: JWST ETC Scenes and Sources Page Overview, JWST ETC Defining a New Source

We define 2 scenes, each containing one source:

1. Emission line galaxy (ELG) used for the wide field slitless spectroscopy (WFSS) grism calculation
2. Galaxy (without emission lines) for the imaging calculations. This extended source will have a width of σ = 0.15", the expected size of galaxies at z ~ 3 (e.g., Ferguson et al. 2004).
   
   

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ETC Calculations overview

See also: JWST ETC Calculations Page Overview, JWST ETC Creating a New Calculation, JWST ETC Backgrounds, JWST ETC Outputs Overview

Below is a summary of the 4 calculations included in the accompanying ETC workbook. The following sections provide the rationale for each calculation.

For all calculations, we use the following settings for Backgrounds:

• Ra Dec: 01:00:13.02 28:02:25 (the position of one target in the GTO program)
• Background configuration: Low (corresponding to the 10th percentile of the background level)
  
  

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Run ETC calculation for WFSS

See also:
JWST ETC Aperture Spectral Extraction Strategy, NIRCam WFSS Recommended Strategies, 
NIRCam WFSS Sensitivity, NIRCam Wide Field Slitless Spectroscopy, JWST ETC Batch Expansion

Recall that the total exposure time (for each mosaic tile) will consist of 24 exposures: 12 dither positions for each of 2 grism observations at long wavelengths, one paired with short wavelength F115W imaging, and the other with F200W. Our initial estimates suggest that roughly 2 hours (~7,200 s) of exposure time will be required, or ~300 s for each of the 24 exposures. Based on the NIRCam imaging sensitivity recommended readout patterns for maximal depth, we find this corresponds roughly to 6 groups of the SHALLOW4 Readout pattern in each exposure. Thus we use that as a baseline for our calculations:

• Instrument setup:
  • Grism = GRISMR
  • Filter = F356W
    
    
• Detector Setup:
  • Groups per integration = 6
  • Readout pattern = SHALLOW4
  • Exposure per specification = 24 (to mimic the 12 dither positions × 2 sets of grism observations)
    
    
• Strategy: Wavelength of interest: 3.6 µm

We require a total exposure time that yields SNR ~ 10. We examine the SNR as a function of exposure time by performing calculations for the range of 3–10 groups of the SHALLOW4 Readout pattern. This is done using the Expand tab at the top of the screen.

• Expand Groups: Start Value = 3, Step Size = 1, Iterations = 8

The resulting SNR for each exposure time is reported in the Calculations tab. One can also generate a plot of the SNR vs. exposure time by selecting all the entries and viewing the SNR tab in the Plots pane. The results are shown in Figure 1 below.

We find ~8,000 s of exposure time is required to yield a 10-sigma detection of the ELG defined above. In practice, the GTO program opts for 6 groups of SHALLOW4 in each of the 24 exposures, yielding a total exposure time of 7,472.79 s and SNR ~ 9.4.

The final SNR is a slight compromise relative to the initial goal of 10-sigma. After designing the observations in APT, users realize the overhead times charged to their proposed observations. At that point, you will choose either to propose for the full time required for your science goals or compromise the requirements slightly to reduce the total proposal request.

(Note: in the accompanying ETC workbook, rather than providing the full range of calculations, we provide a single calculation with the resulting choice of 6 groups of SHALLOW4.)

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Run ETC calculation for direct imaging

See also: JWST ETC Imaging Aperture Photometry Strategy, NIRCam Imaging Recommended Strategies, NIRCam Imaging Sensitivity, NIRCam Imaging

We would like to extract spectra in galaxies as faint as AB mag 26.5. Thus we need to ensure they are detected in the direct imaging to be obtained in F356W. We use a similar setup as above and perform the calculation on the galaxy without any emission line (Calculation #2).

Since this is an extended source, we must increase the size of the photometric apertures to accommodate it. For faint Gaussian sources of width σ, optimal signal to noise is obtained with an aperture of radius ~1.6σ. The width of our source is σ = 0.15", enlarged slightly to 0.158" after convolution with the NIRCam PSF for F356W (σ ~ 0.05").  Thus we will use an aperture radius of 0.25". For the background estimation, we will use large annuli, which is optimistic (assuming this area is free of other sources), but this choice does not affect the results substantially.

• Instrument setup: Filter = F356W
  
  
• Detector Setup: 
  • Groups per integration = 10 
  • Readout pattern = SHALLOW4 (1 integration, 1 exposure)
    
    
• Strategy:
  • Aperture radius = 0.25 (arcsec)
  • Sky annulus Inner radius = 1.2 (arcsec)
  • Sky annulus Outer radius = 1.95 (arcsec)

The resulting exposure time is 526.10 s, and SNR ~ 8 for the AB mag 26.5 galaxy. That will be sufficient for the direct imaging.

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Run ETC calculation for short wavelength imaging

Simultaneous with the WFSS observations, we plan to obtain imaging using the short wavelength filters F115W and F200W, splitting the total exposure time equally between the two (i.e., 12 exposures totaling 3,736.4 s). The specifications for each exposure must be the same as those used for the WFSS observations: 6 groups of SHALLOW4. Thus we define two more ETC calculations on the galaxy as follows:

• Instrument setup: 
  • Filter = F115W (Calculation #3)
  • Filter = F200W (Calculation #4)
    
    
• Detector Setup:
  • Groups per integration = 6
  • Readout pattern = SHALLOW4
  • Exposures per specification = 12
    
    
• Strategy:
  • Aperture radius = 0.25 (arcsec)
  • Sky annulus Inner radius = 1.2 (arcsec)
  • Sky annulus Outer radius = 1.95 (arcsec)

The ETC confirms that a small AB mag 26.5 galaxy (without the strong emission line) should be detected with SNR ~ 9 and 14 in the F115W and F200W imaging, respectively.

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ETC Results Summary

Below we summarize the ETC inputs and results for the planned observations.

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References

Ferguson, H. C. et al. 2004, ApJL, 600, L107
The Size Evolution of High-Redshift Galaxies

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