NEXUS: Transient Searches and First Results from Year One Observations
Abstract
We describe ongoing efforts of high-redshift transient searches using multi-epoch NIRCam imaging (F200W+F444W) and NIRSpec MSA/PRISM spectroscopy from the NEXUS JWST multi-cycle Treasury program targeting the north ecliptic pole region. The transient search area covers ∼ 61.5 arcmin2 between the reference epoch and each subsequent NEXUS-Deep epoch at a cadence of ∼2~months. In the first year of observations from NEXUS, we detect 68 robust transients, with the host photometric redshift distribution declining rapidly at z>2 but extending to zphot≈ 6. In addition, we obtained secure spectroscopic redshifts for 37 transients (∼54%) from NIRSpec/PRISM and NIRCam/WFSS, with seventeen at 1 < z < 2, eight at 2 < z < 3, two at 3 < z < 4, and one tentative host association at z = 6.151. Overall, the NEXUS program recovers observed supernova (SN) rates broadly consistent with other SN search programs with JWST. While NEXUS achieves the highest transient detection efficiency, 6.6 SNe per imaging hr (2.6× COSMOS-SN and 26× JADES-SN), the limited filter coverage (F200W+F444W only) limits robust identification and classification of high-z SNe for deep spectroscopic follow-up. We describe the details of the data reduction and transient detection pipeline, and report the Year-1 transient sample along with their light curves, available MSA spectroscopy, host association, and the raw detection rate. We also describe and release a new PSF photometry package that properly accounts for correlated pixel noise from combining drizzled images.
Related
- GWTC-4.0: Updating the Gravitational-wave Transient Catalog with Observations from the First Part of the Fourth LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA Observing Run
- NEXUS: Discovery of a Luminous Young Transient at z=5
- A semicoherent resampling method for long-transient gravitational wave searches with applications to subsolar-mass primordial black-hole binaries
- Recycling serendipitous observations of XRISM for dark matter searches
- Efficient searches of small signals across two-channel noisy data: a challenge in Big Data observations
BibTeX
@misc{zhuang2026nexus,
title = {{NEXUS: Transient Searches and First Results from Year One Observations}},
author = {Ming-Yang Zhuang and Lei Hu and Justin D. R. Pierel and Zhiwei Pan and Yue Shen and Adam J. Burgasser and Xiaohui Fan and Luis C. Ho and Junyao Li and Alice E. Shapley and Zachary Stone and Feige Wang and Lifan Wang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.06985},
eprint = {2609.06985},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06985},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - NEXUS: Transient Searches and First Results from Year One Observations
AU - Ming-Yang Zhuang
AU - Lei Hu
AU - Justin D. R. Pierel
AU - Zhiwei Pan
AU - Yue Shen
AU - Adam J. Burgasser
AU - Xiaohui Fan
AU - Luis C. Ho
AU - Junyao Li
AU - Alice E. Shapley
AU - Zachary Stone
AU - Feige Wang
AU - Lifan Wang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/07
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.06985
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06985
AB - We describe ongoing efforts of high-redshift transient searches using multi-epoch NIRCam imaging (F200W+F444W) and NIRSpec MSA/PRISM spectroscopy from the NEXUS JWST multi-cycle Treasury program targeting the north ecliptic pole region. The transient search area covers ∼ 61.5 arcmin^2 between the reference epoch and each subsequent NEXUS-Deep epoch at a cadence of ∼2~months. In the first year of observations from NEXUS, we detect 68 robust transients, with the host photometric redshift distribution declining rapidly at z>2 but extending to z_phot≈ 6. In addition, we obtained secure spectroscopic redshifts for 37 transients (∼54%) from NIRSpec/PRISM and NIRCam/WFSS, with seventeen at 1 < z < 2, eight at 2 < z < 3, two at 3 < z < 4, and one tentative host association at z = 6.151. Overall, the NEXUS program recovers observed supernova (SN) rates broadly consistent with other SN search programs with JWST. While NEXUS achieves the highest transient detection efficiency, 6.6 SNe per imaging hr (2.6× COSMOS-SN and 26× JADES-SN), the limited filter coverage (F200W+F444W only) limits robust identification and classification of high-z SNe for deep spectroscopic follow-up. We describe the details of the data reduction and transient detection pipeline, and report the Year-1 transient sample along with their light curves, available MSA spectroscopy, host association, and the raw detection rate. We also describe and release a new PSF photometry package that properly accounts for correlated pixel noise from combining drizzled images.
ER -