PEARLS: Near Infrared Photometry in the JWST North Ecliptic Pole Time Domain Field

TL;DR

This paper presents new near-infrared ground-based imaging data in the JWST North Ecliptic Pole TDF, combining it with archival data to create a comprehensive multi-wavelength catalog for future time-domain studies.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed NIR imaging in the TDF, estimates depths, and merges these with existing data to support time-domain astrophysics research.

Findings

Achieved 1 sigma depths of ~23.5 AB mag in Y, J, H, K bands.

Produced a catalog of 57,501 sources combining NIR and visible data.

Established a baseline for future time-domain studies in the region.

Abstract

We present Near-Infrared (NIR) ground-based Y, J, H, and K imaging obtained in the James Webb Space Telescope North Ecliptic Pole Time Domain Field (TDF) using the MMT-Magellan Infrared Imager and Spectrometer (MMIRS) on the MMT.These new observations cover a field of approximately 230 arcmin^2 in Y, H, and K and 313 arcmin^2 in J. Using Monte Carlo simulations we estimate a 1 sigma depth relative to the background sky of (Y, J, H, K}) = (23.80, 23.53, 23.13, 23.28) in AB magnitudes for point sources at a 95% completeness level. These observations are part of the ground-based effort to characterize this region of the sky, supplementing space-based data obtained with Chandra, NuSTAR, XMM, AstroSat, HST, and JWST. This paper describes the observations and reduction of the NIR imaging and combines these NIR data with archival imaging in the visible, obtained with the Subaru Hyper-Suprime-Cam, to produce a merged catalog of 57,501 sources. The new observations reported here, plus the corresponding multi-wavelength catalog, will provide a baseline for time-domain studies of bright sources in the TDF.