SPHEREx 2016 Workshop

SPHEREx was recently selected by NASA as a Small Explorer for Phase A study, with launch in 2020 if we prevail in the next evaluation cycle. The PI of SPHEREx is Professor Jamie Bock of Caltech/JPL. Briefly, SPHEREx will return spectra from 0.75 to 5.0 um of every 6x6 arcsec pixel on the sky. The spectral resolving power will be 41.5 from 0.75 to 4.1um and 150 from 4.1 to 5.0 um, and the 5-sigma sensitivity at the end of the two year mission is expected to be better than 19th AB magnitude. The sensitivity estimates are compared to those of other surveys in the figure at left.

The SPHEREx science team built our proposal to study three specific science issues: 1) Cosmic inflation; 2) The history of light production in the Universe; and 3) The evolution of ices in interstellar and protostellar environments. However, SPHEREx, as the first all sky spectral survey in the 0.75-5.0 um band, will create a data base applicable to a very wide range of astrophysical questions. Our intent for the workshop was, accordingly, to enlist the participation of the scientific community on the following three items:

• Identify the most exciting and compelling science questions outside of our three main science themes which can be explored with SPHEREx data
• Identify data products, tools, and ancillary data beyond those needed for the three main themes
• Evaluate and comment on early release science plans

The community workshop was well-attended, with over 60 attendees (see below), and highly interactive. The results included a publicly available white paper, and motivated some modifications to our plans for data products and data releases during the mission, as well as a list of new data products and software tools to enable legacy science themes identified during the workshop, if additional funds can be identified for that purpose. We intend that this workshop serve as the beginning of a continuing dialogue between the SPHEREx team and interested members of the astrophysics community.