IAC WEB pages on the SWIRE project.

Main SWIRE WEB site:

http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/SWIRE/

Related links

Informacion sobre el satélite SIRTF en español: http://sirtf.caltech.edu/espanol/

SWIRE is a wide-area, high galactic latitude, imaging survey to trace the evolution of dusty, star-forming galaxies, evolved stellar populations, and active galactic nuclei as a function of environment from redshifts, z ~ 3, when the Universe was about 2 billion years old, to the present time. SWIRE will survey approximately 70 square degrees with the MIPS far-infrared camera and the with the IRAC mid-infrared camera. The key scientific goals of SWIRE are to determine:

• The evolution of both actively star-forming and passively-evolving galaxies to determine the history of galaxy formation (including the global Star Formation History - SFH), in the context of cosmic structure formation and galaxy environment.
• The spatial distribution and clustering of evolved galaxies, starbursts, and AGN, and the evolution of their clustering in the key redshift range from 0.5 < z < 3 over which much of cosmic evolution has occurred.
• The evolutionary relationship between galaxies and AGN, and the contribution of AGN accretion energy to the cosmic backgrounds, relative to that from nucleosynthesis.

The survey will be dominated by: (1) more than 10⁵ luminous infrared galaxies (log L_Far-IR > 10¹¹ L); up to 40,000 with z > 2. (2) 1 million early-type galaxies; up to 400,000 with z > 2. (3) 30,000 classical AGN, and as many as 250,000 dust-obscured QSO/AGN.

The satellite data will be complemented by an extensive program of ground-based optical, near-infrared and radio observations, providing identifications, photometric-redshifts, spectral energy distributions and other physical information. All of the survey data will be available to the Astronomical Community through the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive.

SWIRE Survey Areas

Please note Survey changes for 2003 August launch, most especially XMM-LSS coordinate change. Even though SIRTF has now launched, all information on this page is still subject to change and should be considered tentative! If you are making detailed plans based on the SWIRE survey, it would be safest to contact the science team to confirm the details.

Hammer-Aitoff equal area projection in galactic coordinates of the 100µm sky with SWIRE Survey Fields shown in red.The contour levels in blue, green yellow are 1, 2, 4 MJy/sr, respectively. The yellow ellipses mark ecliptic latitudes of 30° and 40°. (Map by S. Oliver, U. Sussex, from the COBE/DIRBE & IRAS/ISSA maps by Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis 1998, ApJ, 500, 525.)
-- Clickable image: click on field name or location to see field details --

• Hubble Deep Fields: HDF-N, HDF-S
• Marano Hole
• NOAO Deep-Wide Survey: North, South

SWIRE will survey approximately 65 square degrees distributed over 7 fields in the northern and southern sky, which will enable follow-up with many existing ground and space telescope facilities.

The SWIRE Team has performed an exhaustive search for high-latitude fields with low-background to maximize the sensitivity of the SWIRE Legacy Survey. The fields below represent, in many respects the largest, lowest infrared background regions in the sky. The selection criteria were:

• Low galactic cirrus emission (I < 0.5 MJy/SR) in order to minimize confusion and noise.
• High galactic latitude in order to ensure SIRTF and FIRST visibility and to minimize zodiacal background.
• Large contiguous area, to enable large scale structure studies.
• Minimum contamination by bright stars, galaxies, radio sources, and galaxy clusters.
• Availability of unique datasets at other wavelengths. Fields selected for SWIRE include areas of:
  • The XMM Large-Scale Structure Survey XMM-LSS and the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey NOAO DWS (South)
  • The European Large-Area ISO Survey (ELAIS) - ELAIS N1, N2, S1, and
  • The Chandra Deep South Survey Field.
  • The well-studied Lockman Hole.

Survey Areas:

Survey fields reflect AORs effective as of Aug 2003 launch. Images show IRAC/MIPS fields for plausible observation dates within SWIRE requested timing constraints, but remain subject to the uncertainties of spacecraft scheduling.