SWIRE: TheSIRTFWide‐Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey

Abstract

The SIRTF Wide‐Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE), the largest SIRTF Legacy program, is a wide‐area imaging survey to trace the evolution of dusty, star‐forming galaxies, evolved stellar populations, and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as a function of environment, from redshifts z ∼ 3 to the current epoch. SWIRE will survey seven high‐latitude fields, totaling 60–65 deg2 in all seven SIRTF bands: Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) 3.6, 4.5, 5.6, and 8 μm and Multiband Imaging Photometer for SIRTF (MIPS) 24, 70, and 160 μm. Extensive modeling suggests that the Legacy Extragalactic Catalog may contain in excess of 2 million IR‐selected galaxies, dominated by (1) ∼150,000 luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs; LFIR > 1011 L⊙) detected by MIPS (and significantly more detected by IRAC), ∼7000 of these with z>2; (2) 1 million IRAC‐detected early‐type galaxies (∼ 2 × 105 with z>1 and ∼10,000 with z>2); and (3) ∼20,000 classical AGNs detected with MIPS, plus significantly more dust‐obscured quasi‐stellar objects/AGNs among the LIRGs. SWIRE will provide an unprecedented view of the evolution of galaxies, structure, and AGNs.