  The J-PAS survey will observe ~1/3 of the northern sky with a set of 56
narrow-band filters using the dedicated 2.55 m JST telescope at the Javalambre
Astrophysical Observatory. Prior to the installation of the main camera, in
order to demonstrate the scientific potential of J-PAS, two small surveys were
performed with the single-CCD Pathfinder camera: miniJPAS (~1 deg2 along the
Extended Groth Strip), and J-NEP (~0.3 deg2 around the JWST North Ecliptic Pole
Time Domain Field), including all 56 J-PAS filters as well as u, g, r, and i.
J-NEP is ~0.5-1.0 magnitudes deeper than miniJPAS, providing photometry for
24,618 r-band detected sources and photometric redshifts (photo-z) for the
6,662 sources with r<23.
  In this paper we describe the photometry and photo-z of J-NEP and demonstrate
a new method for the removal of systematic offsets in the photometry based on
the median colours of galaxies, dubbed "galaxy locus recalibration". This
method does not require spectroscopic observations except in a few reference
pointings and, unlike previous methods, is applicable to the whole J-PAS
survey.
  We use a spectroscopic sample of 787 galaxies to test the photo-z performance
for J-NEP and in comparison to miniJPAS. We find that the deeper J-NEP
observations result in a factor ~1.5-2 decrease in sigma_NMAD (a robust
estimate of the standard deviation of the photo-z error) and the outlier rate
relative to miniJPAS for r>21.5 sources, but no improvement in brighter ones.
We find the same relation between sigma_NMAD and odds in J-NEP and miniJPAS,
suggesting sigma_NMAD can be predicted for any set of J-PAS sources from their
odds distribution alone, with no need for additional spectroscopy to calibrate
the relation. We explore the causes for photo-z outliers and find that
colour-space degeneracy at low S/N, photometry artifacts, source blending, and
exotic spectra are the most important factors.
