Aether

A JWST/NIRSpec IFU survey of 200 quasars at z ~ 6

The Aether survey

Aether is the personification of the bright upper sky. According to Hesiod, he was the son of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and the brother of Hemera (Day). In Orphic cosmogony, Aether was the offspring of Chronos (Time) and the brother of Chaos and Erebus. Credit: Ema, Wikipedia, and ChatGPT.

The Aether Survey

Aether is a JWST Survey-category General Observers program (GO 5645) using NIRSpec integral field unit (IFU) spectroscopy to follow up all quasars known at 5.7 < z < 6.9 at the time of proposal preparation. Rather than a small, pointed sample, Aether is designed as a systematic, unbiased survey of the known reionization-era quasar population, obtained through spatially resolved integral field spectroscopy.

Survey design. Aether targets essentially the full population of 343 known quasars in the 5.7 < z < 6.9 range identified at the time of proposal preparation, without additional selection. This Survey-category design (rather than a pointed program) ensures a complete, unbiased spectroscopic census of the known z ~ 6 quasar population.

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