JADES NIRSpec initial data release for the Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Redshifts and line fluxes of distant galaxies from the deepest JWST Cycle 1 NIRSpec multi-object spectroscopy

¹ Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK
² Centre for Astrophysics Research, Department of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK
³ Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Copenhagen, Denmark
⁴ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Jagtvej 128, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark
⁵ Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, 56126 Pisa, Italy
⁶ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁷ Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
⁸ Cavendish Laboratory – Astrophysics Group, University of Cambridge, 19 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
¹⁰ NRC Herzberg, 5071 West Saanich Rd, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada
¹¹ Steward Observatory University of Arizona 933 N. Cherry Avenue Tucson AZ 85721, USA
¹² Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L3 5RF, UK
¹³ Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC–INTA, Cra. de Ajalvir Km. 4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain
¹⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg MB R3T 2N2, Canada
¹⁵ European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28692 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain; European Space Agency, ESA/ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands
¹⁶ Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Natural Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
¹⁷ School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, VIC, Australia
¹⁸ ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), Australia
¹⁹ Sorbonne Université, CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, 98 bis bd Arago, 75014 Paris, France
²⁰ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
²¹ Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
²² Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA
²³ ATG Europe for the European Space Agency, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
²⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
²⁵ European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA
²⁶ Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
²⁷ Department for Astrophysical and Planetary Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
²⁸ Observational Cosmology Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt, MD, USA
²⁹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
³⁰ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
³¹ NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA

^★ Corresponding author; andy.bunker@physics.ox.ac.uk

Received: 4 June 2023
Accepted: 21 May 2024

Abstract

We describe the NIRSpec component of the JWST Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), and provide deep spectroscopy of 253 sources targeted with the NIRSpec micro-shutter assembly in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and surrounding GOODS-South. The multi-object spectra presented here are the deepest so far obtained with JWST, amounting to up to 28 hours in the low-dispersion (R~30–300) prism, and up to 7 hours in each of the three medium-resolution R ≈ 1000 gratings and one high-dispersion grating, G395H (R ≈ 2700). Our low-dispersion and medium-dispersion spectra cover the wavelength range 0.6–5.3 μm. We describe the selection of the spectroscopic targets, the strategy for the allocation of targets to micro-shutters, and the design of the observations. We present the public release of the reduced 2D and 1D spectra, and a description of the reduction and calibration process. We measure spectroscopic redshifts for 178 of the objects targeted extending up to z = 13.2. We present a catalogue of all emission lines detected at S/N > 5, and our redshift determinations for the targets. Combined with the first JADES NIRCam data release, these public JADES spectroscopic and imaging datasets provide a new foundation for discoveries of the infrared universe by the worldwide scientific community.