ABSTRACT
Galaxies in the reionization era have been shown to have prominent O iii + H β emission. Little is known about the gas conditions and radiation field of this population, making it ...challenging to interpret the spectra emerging at z ≳ 6. Motivated by this shortcoming, we have initiated a large MMT spectroscopic survey identifying rest-frame optical emission lines in 227 intense O iii emitting galaxies at 1.3 < z < 2.4. This sample complements the MOSDEF and KBSS surveys, extending to much lower stellar masses ($10^7\!-\!10^8 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$) and larger specific star formation rates (5–300 Gyr−1), providing a window on galaxies directly following a burst or recent upturn in star formation. The hydrogen ionizing production efficiency (ξion) is found to increase with the O iii equivalent width (EW), in a manner similar to that found in local galaxies. We describe how this relationship helps explain the anomalous success rate in identifying Ly α emission in z ≳ 7 galaxies with strong O iii + H β emission. We probe the impact of the intense radiation field on the ISM using O32 and Ne3O2, two ionization-sensitive indices. Both are found to scale with the O iii EW, revealing extreme ionization conditions not commonly seen in older and more massive galaxies. In the most intense line emitters, the indices have very large average values (O32 = 9.1, Ne3O2 = 0.5) that have been shown to be linked to ionizing photon escape. We discuss implications for the nature of galaxies most likely to have O32 values associated with significant LyC escape. Finally we consider the optimal strategy for JWST spectroscopic investigations of galaxies at z ≳ 10 where the strongest rest-frame optical lines are no longer visible with NIRSpec.
ABSTRACT
The variety of star formation histories (SFHs) of z ≳ 6 galaxies provides important insights into early star formation, but has been difficult to systematically quantify. Some observations ...suggest that many z ∼ 6–9 galaxies are dominated by ≳200 Myr stellar populations, implying significant star formation at z ≳ 9, while others find that most reionization era galaxies are ≲10 Myr, consistent with little z ≳ 9 star formation. Here, we quantify the distribution of ages of UV-bright ($-22.5\lesssim M_{\rm \small UV}\lesssim -21$) galaxies colour-selected to lie at z ≃ 6.6–6.9, an ideal redshift range to systematically study the SFHs of reionization era galaxies with ground-based observatories and Spitzer. We infer galaxy properties with two SED modelling codes and compare results, finding that stellar masses are largely insensitive to the model, but the inferred ages can vary by an order of magnitude. We infer a distribution of ages assuming a simple, parametric SFH model, finding a median age of ∼30–70 Myr depending on SED model. We quantify the fractions of ≤10 and ≥250 Myr galaxies, finding that these systems comprise ∼15–30 per cent and ∼20–25 per cent of the population, respectively. With a flexible SFH model, the shapes of the SFHs are consistent with those implied by the simple model (e.g. young galaxies have rapidly rising SFHs). However, stellar masses can differ significantly, with those of young systems sometimes being more than an order of magnitude larger with the flexible SFH. We quantify the implications of these results for z ≳ 9 stellar mass assembly and discuss improvements expected from JWST.
Abstract
Nearby dwarf galaxies provide a unique laboratory in which to test stellar population models below Z⊙/2. Such tests are particularly important for interpreting the surprising high-ionization ...ultraviolet (UV) line emission detected at z > 6 in recent years. We present HST/COS UV spectra of 10 nearby metal-poor star-forming galaxies selected to show He ii emission in SDSS optical spectra. The targets span nearly a dex in gas-phase oxygen abundance (7.8 < 12 + log O/H < 8.5) and present uniformly large specific star formation rates (sSFR ∼102 Gyr−1). The UV spectra confirm that metal-poor stellar populations can power extreme nebular emission in high-ionization UV lines, reaching C iii equivalent widths comparable to those seen in systems at z ∼ 6–7. Our data reveal a marked transition in UV spectral properties with decreasing metallicity, with systems below 12 + log O/H ≲ 8.0 (Z/Z⊙ ≲ 1/5) presenting minimal stellar wind features and prominent nebular emission in He ii and C iv. This is consistent with nearly an order of magnitude increase in ionizing photon production beyond the He+-ionizing edge relative to H-ionizing flux as metallicity decreases below a fifth solar, well in excess of standard stellar population synthesis predictions. Our results suggest that often-neglected sources of energetic radiation such as stripped binary products and very massive O-stars produce a sharper change in the ionizing spectrum with decreasing metallicity than expected. Consequently, nebular emission in C iv and He ii powered by these stars may provide useful metallicity constraints in the reionization era.
ABSTRACT
Deep spectroscopy of galaxies in the reionization era has revealed intense C iii and C iv line emission (equivalent width, EW >15–20 Å). In order to interpret the nebular emission emerging ...at z > 6, we have begun targeting rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) emission lines in galaxies with large specific star formation rates (sSFRs) at 1.3 < z < 3.7. We find that C iii reaches the EWs seen at z > 6 only in large sSFR galaxies with O iii+Hβ EW >1500 Å. In contrast to previous studies, we find that many galaxies with intense O iii have weak C iii emission (EW = 5–8 Å), suggesting that the radiation field associated with young stellar populations is not sufficient to power strong C iii. Photoionization models demonstrate that the spread in C iii among systems with large sSFRs (O iii+Hβ EW >1500 Å) is driven by variations in metallicity, a result of the extreme sensitivity of C iii to electron temperature. We find that the strong C iii emission seen at z > 6 (EW >15 Å) requires metal-poor gas (≃ 0.1 Z⊙), whereas the weaker C iii emission in our sample tends to be found at moderate metallicities (≃ 0.3 Z⊙). The luminosity distribution of the C iii emitters in our z ≃ 1–3 sample presents a consistent picture, with stronger emission generally linked to low-luminosity systems (MUV > −19.5) where low metallicities are more likely. We quantify the fraction of strong C iii and C iv emitters at z ≃ 1–3, providing a baseline for comparison against z > 6 samples. We suggest that the first UV line detections at z > 6 can be explained if a significant fraction of the early galaxy population is found at large sSFR (>200 Gyr−1) and low metallicity (< 0.1 Z⊙).
ABSTRACT
Reionization-era galaxies tend to exhibit weak Ly α emission, likely reflecting attenuation from an increasingly neutral IGM. Recent observations have begun to reveal exceptions to this ...picture, with strong Ly α emission now known in four of the most massive z = 7–9 galaxies in the CANDELS fields, all of which also exhibit intense O iii+H β emission (EW > 800 Å). To better understand why Ly α is anomalously strong in a subset of massive z ≃ 7–9 galaxies, we have initiated an MMT/Binospec survey targeting a larger sample (N = 22) of similarly luminous (≃1–6 L$^{\ast }_{\mathrm{UV}}$) z ≃ 7 galaxies selected over very wide-area fields (∼3 deg2). We confidently (>7σ) detect Ly α in 78 per cent (7/9) of galaxies with strong O iii+H β emission (EW > 800 Å) as opposed to only 8 per cent (1/12) of galaxies with more moderate (EW = 200–800 Å) O iii+H β. We argue that the higher Ly α EWs of the strong O iii+H β population likely reflect enhanced ionizing photon production efficiency owing to their large sSFRs (≳30 Gyr−1). We also find evidence that Ly α transmission from massive galaxies declines less rapidly over 6 < z < 7 than in low-mass lensed systems. In particular, our data suggest no strong evolution in Ly α transmission, consistent with a picture wherein massive z ≃ 7 galaxies often reside in large ionized regions. We detect three closely separated (R = 1.7 physical Mpc) z ≃ 7 Ly α emitters in our sample, conceivably tracing a large ionized structure that is consistent with this picture. We detect tentative evidence for an overdensity in this region, implying a large ionizing photon budget in the surrounding volume.
We present very faint dropout galaxies at z ∼ 6−9 with a stellar mass M down to that are found in deep optical/near-infrared (NIR) images of the full data sets of the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) ...program in conjunction with deep ground-based and Spitzer images and gravitational-lensing magnification effects. We investigate stellar populations of the HFF dropout galaxies with the optical/NIR photometry and BEAGLE models made of self-consistent stellar population synthesis and photoionization models, carefully including strong nebular emission impacting on the photometry. We identify 453 galaxies with . Our best-estimate function is comparable to a model of star formation duration time of 100 Myr that is assumed in Bouwens et al. We derive the galaxy stellar mass functions (GSMFs) at z ∼ 6-9 that agree with those obtained by previous studies at , and that extend to . Estimating the stellar mass densities with the GSMFs, we find a very slow evolution from z ∼ 9 to z ∼ 6-7, which is consistent with the one estimated from star formation rate density measurements. In conjunction with the estimates of the galaxy effective radii Re on the source plane, we have pinpointed four objects with low stellar masses ( ) and very compact morphologies ( pc) that are comparable with those of globular clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way today. These objects are candidates of star clusters, some of which may be related to GCs today.
ABSTRACT
We analyse the chemical properties of three z∼ 8 galaxies behind the galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327, observed as part of the Early Release Observations programme of the James Webb Space ...Telescope. Exploiting O iiiλ4363 auroral line detections in NIRSpec spectra, we robustly apply the direct Te method for the very first time at such high redshift, measuring metallicities ranging from extremely metal poor (12 + log(O/H)≈ 7) to about one-third solar. We also discuss the excitation properties of these sources, and compare them with local strong-line metallicity calibrations. We find that none of the considered diagnostics match simultaneously the observed relations between metallicity and strong-line ratios for the three sources, implying that a proper re-assessment of the calibrations may be needed at these redshifts. On the mass–metallicity plane, the two galaxies at z ∼ 7.6 ($\rm log(M_*/M_{\odot }) = 8.1, 8.7$) have metallicities that are consistent with the extrapolation of the mass–metallicity relation at z∼2–3, while the least massive galaxy at z ∼ 8.5 ($\rm log(M_*/M_{\odot }) = 7.8$) shows instead a significantly lower metallicity. The three galaxies show different level of offset relative to the Fundamental Metallicity Relation, with two of them (at z∼ 7.6) being marginally consistent, while the z∼ 8.5 source deviating significantly, being probably far from the smooth equilibrium between gas flows, star formation, and metal enrichment in place at later epochs.
Measurements of the galaxy UV luminosity function at z 6 suggest that young stars hosted in low-mass star-forming galaxies produced the bulk of hydrogen-ionizing photons necessary to reionize the ...intergalactic medium (IGM) by redshift z ∼ 6. Whether star-forming galaxies dominated cosmic reionization, however, also depends on their stellar populations and interstellar medium properties, which set, among other things, the production rate of H-ionizing photons, ξ ion , and the fraction of these escaping into the IGM. Given the difficulty of constraining with existing observatories the physical properties of z 6 galaxies, in this work we focus on a sample of ten nearby objects showing UV spectral features comparable to those observed at z 6. We use the new-generation tool to model the UV-to-optical photometry and UV/optical emission lines of these Local 'analogues' of high-redshift galaxies, finding that our relatively simple, yet fully self-consistent, physical model can successfully reproduce the different observables considered. Our galaxies span a broad range of metallicities and are characterised by high ionization parameters, low dust attenuation, and very young stellar populations. Through our analysis, we derive a novel diagnostic of the production rate of H-ionizing photons per unit UV luminosity, ξ ion , based on the equivalent width of the bright O λλ4959,5007 line doublet, which does not require measurements of H-recombination lines. This new diagnostic can be used to estimate ξ ion from future direct measurements of the O λλ4959,5007 line using JWST/NIRSpec (out to z ∼ 9.5), and by exploiting the contamination by Hβ + O λλ4959,5007 of photometric observations of distant galaxies, for instance from existing Spitzer/IRAC data and from future ones with JWST/NIRCam.
We present a systematic study of the shape of the dust attenuation curve in star-forming galaxies from the far-ultraviolet (far-UV) to the near-infrared (NIR; ∼0.15-2 μ m), as a function of specific ...star formation rate (ψS) and axial ratio (b/a), for galaxies with and without a significant bulge. Our sample comprises 23 000 (15 000) galaxies with a median redshift of 0.07, with photometric entries in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey-Large Area Survey and Galaxy Evolution Explorer-All-Sky Imaging Survey catalogues and emission-line measurements from the SDSS spectroscopic survey. We develop a new pair-matching technique to isolate the dust attenuation curves from the stellar continuum emission. The main results are: (i) the slope of the attenuation curve in the optical varies weakly with ψS, strongly with b/a, and is significantly steeper than the Milky Way extinction law in bulge-dominated galaxies; (ii) the NIR slope is constant and matches the slope of the Milky Way extinction law; (iii) the UV has a slope change consistent with a dust bump at 2175 Å which is evident in all samples and varies strongly in strength with b/a in the bulge-dominated sample; (iv) there is a strong increase in emission-line-to-continuum dust attenuation (τ
V, line/τ
V, cont) with both decreasing ψS and increasing b/a; and (v) radial gradients in dust attenuation increase strongly with increasing ψS, and the presence of a bulge does not alter the strength of the gradients. These results are consistent with the picture in which young stars are surrounded by dense 'birth clouds' with low covering factor which disperse on time-scales of ∼107 yr and the diffuse interstellar dust is distributed in a centrally concentrated disc with a smaller scaleheight than the older stars that contribute the majority of the red and NIR light. Within this model, the path-length of diffuse dust, but not of birth-cloud dust, increases with increasing inclination and the apparent optical attenuation curve is steepened by the differential effect of larger dust opacity towards younger stars than towards older stars. Additionally, our findings suggest that: (i) galaxies with higher star formation rates per unit stellar mass have a higher fraction of diffuse dust, which is more centrally concentrated; (ii) the observed strength of the 2175-Å dust feature is affected predominantly by global geometry; and (iii) only highly inclined discs are optically thick. We provide new empirically derived attenuation curves for correcting the light from star-forming galaxies for dust attenuation.
Strong O iiiλλ4959,5007 + Hβ emission appears to be typical in star-forming galaxies at z > 6.5. As likely contributors to cosmic reionization, these galaxies and the physical conditions within them ...are of great interest. At z > 6.5, where Ly is greatly attenuated by the intergalactic medium, rest-UV metal emission lines provide an alternative measure of redshift and constraints on the physical properties of star-forming regions and massive stars. We present the first statistical sample of rest-UV line measurements in z ∼ 2 galaxies selected as analogs of those in the reionization era based on O iiiλλ4959,5007 equivalent width (EW) or rest-frame U − B color. Our sample is drawn from the 3D-HST Survey and spans the redshift range . We find that the median Ly and C iiiλλ1907,1909 EWs of our sample are significantly greater than those of z ∼ 2 UV-continuum-selected star-forming galaxies. Measurements from both individual and composite spectra indicate a monotonic, positive correlation between C iii and O iii, while a lack of trend is observed between Ly and O iii at EWO iii 1000 . At higher EWO iii, extreme Ly emission starts to emerge. Using stacked spectra, we find that Ly and C iii are significantly enhanced in galaxies with lower metallicity. Two objects in our sample appear comparable to z > 6.5 galaxies with exceptionally strong rest-UV metal line emission. These objects have significant C ivλλ1548,1550, He iiλ1640, and O iiiλλ1661,1665 emission in addition to intense Ly or C iii. Detailed characterization of these lower-redshift analogs provides unique insights into the physical conditions in z > 6.5 star-forming regions, motivating future observations of reionization-era analogs at lower redshifts.
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