Abstract
We present the results of a first search for galaxy candidates at
z
∼ 9–15 on deep seven-band NIRCam imaging acquired as part of the GLASS-James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Early Release ...Science Program on a flanking field of the Frontier Fields cluster A2744. Candidates are selected via two different renditions of the Lyman-break technique, isolating objects at
z
∼ 9–11, and
z
∼ 9–15, respectively, supplemented by photometric redshifts obtained with two independent codes. We find five color-selected candidates at
z
> 9, plus one additional candidate with photometric redshift
z
phot
≥ 9. In particular, we identify two bright candidates at
M
UV
≃ −21 that are unambiguously placed at
z
≃ 10.6 and
z
≃ 12.2, respectively. The total number of galaxies discovered at
z
> 9 is in line with the predictions of a nonevolving luminosity function. The two bright ones at
z
> 10 are unexpected given the survey volume, although cosmic variance and small number statistics limits general conclusions. This first search demonstrates the unique power of JWST to discover galaxies at the high-redshift frontier. The candidates are ideal targets for spectroscopic follow-up in Cycle-2.
We present a weak-lensing analysis of the merging Frontier Fields (FF) cluster Abell 2744 using new Subaru/Suprime-Cam imaging. The wide-field lensing mass distribution reveals this cluster is ...comprised of four distinct substructures. Simultaneously modeling the two-dimensional reduced shear field using a combination of a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) model for the main core and truncated NFW models for the subhalos, we determine their masses and locations. The total mass of the system is constrained as M sub(200c) = (2.06 + or - 0.42) x 10 super(15)M sub(middot in circle). The most massive clump is the southern component with M sub(200c) = (7.7 + or - 3.4) x 10 super(14)M sub(middot in circle) followed by the western substructure M sub(200c) = (4.5 + or - 2.0) x 10 super(14)M sub(middot in circle) and two smaller substructures to the northeast M sub(200c) = (2.8 + or - 1.6) x 10 super(14)M sub(middot in circle) and northwest M sub(200c) = (1.9 + or - 1.2) x 10 super(14)M sub(middot in circle). The presence of the four substructures supports the picture of multiple mergers. Using a composite of hydrodynamical binary simulations we explain this complicated system without the need for a "slingshot" effect to produce the northwest X-ray interloper, as previously proposed. The locations of the substructures appear to be offset from both the gas ((ProQuest: Formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted) arcsec, 90% CL) and the galaxies ((ProQuest: Formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted) arcsec, 90% CL) in the case of the northwestern and western subhalos. To confirm or refute these findings, high resolution space-based observations extending beyond the current FF limited coverage to the west and northwestern area are essential.
Abstract
We present near-infrared spectroscopic confirmations of a sample of 16 photometrically selected galaxies with stellar masses
>11 at redshift
z
> 3 from the XMM-VIDEO and COSMOS-UltraVISTA ...fields using Keck/MOSFIRE as part of the Massive Ancient Galaxies At
z
> 3 NEar-infrared (MAGAZ3NE) survey. Eight of the ultramassive galaxies (UMGs) have specific star formation rates (sSFR) < 0.03 Gyr
−1
, with negligible emission lines. Another seven UMGs show emission lines consistent with active galactic nuclei and/or star formation, while only one UMG has sSFR > 1 Gyr
−1
. Model star formation histories of these galaxies describe systems that formed the majority of their stars in vigorous bursts of several hundred megayear duration around
during which hundreds to thousands of solar masses were formed per year. These formation ages of <1 Gyr prior to observation are consistent with ages derived from measurements of
D
n
(4000) and
(H
δ
). Rapid quenching followed these bursty star-forming periods, generally occurring less than 350 Myr before observation, resulting in post-starburst SEDs and spectra for half the sample. The rapid formation timescales are consistent with the extreme star formation rates observed in
dusty starbursts observed with ALMA, suggesting that such dusty galaxies are progenitors of these UMGs. While such formation histories have been suggested in previous studies, the large sample introduced here presents the most compelling evidence yet that vigorous star formation followed by rapid quenching is almost certainly the norm for high-mass galaxies in the early universe. The UMGs presented here were selected to be brighter than
K
s
= 21.7, raising the intriguing possibility that even (fainter) older quiescent UMGs could exist at this epoch.
Abstract
We report the detection of a high density of redshift
z
≈ 10 galaxies behind the foreground cluster A2744, selected from imaging data obtained recently with NIRCam on board JWST by three ...programs—GLASS-JWST, UNCOVER, and DDT#2756. To ensure robust estimates of the lensing magnification
μ
, we use an improved version of our model that exploits the first epoch of NIRCam images and newly obtained MUSE spectra and avoids regions with
μ
> 5 where the uncertainty may be higher. We detect seven bright
z
≈ 10 galaxies with demagnified rest frame −22 ≲
M
UV
≲ −19 mag, over an area of ∼37 arcmin
2
. Taking into account photometric incompleteness and the effects of lensing on luminosity and cosmological volume, we find that the density of
z
≈ 10 galaxies in the field is about 10× (3×) larger than the average at
M
UV
≈ −21 ( −20) mag reported so far. The density is even higher when considering only the GLASS-JWST data, which are the deepest and the least affected by magnification and incompleteness. The GLASS-JWST field contains five out of seven galaxies, distributed along an apparent filamentary structure of 2 Mpc in projected length, and includes a close pair of candidates with
M
UV
< −20 mag having a projected separation of only 16 kpc. These findings suggest the presence of a
z
≈ 10 overdensity in the field. In addition to providing excellent targets for efficient spectroscopic follow-up observations, our study confirms the high density of bright galaxies observed in early JWST observations but calls for multiple surveys along independent lines of sight to achieve an unbiased estimate of their average density and a first estimate of their clustering.
Abstract
Star cluster formation in the early universe and its contribution to reionization remains largely unconstrained to date. Here we present JWST/NIRCam imaging of the most highly magnified ...galaxy known at
z
∼ 6, the
Sunrise
arc. We identify six young massive star clusters (YMCs) with measured radii spanning from ∼20 down to ∼1 pc (corrected for lensing magnification), estimated stellar masses of ∼10
6–7
M
⊙
, and ages of 1–30 Myr based on SED fitting to photometry measured in eight filters extending to rest frame 7000 Å. The resulting stellar mass surface densities are higher than 1000
M
⊙
pc
−2
(up to a few 10
5
M
⊙
pc
−2
), and their inferred dynamical ages qualify the majority of these systems as gravitationally bound stellar clusters. The star cluster ages map the progression of star formation along the arc, with two evolved systems (≳10 Myr old) followed by very young clusters. The youngest stellar clusters (<5 Myr) show evidence of prominent H
β
+O
iii
emission based on photometry with equivalent widths larger than >1000 Å rest frame and are hosted in a 200 pc sized star-forming complex. Such a region dominates the ionizing photon production with a high efficiency
log
(
ξ
ion
Hz
erg
−
1
)
∼
25.7
. A significant fraction of the recently formed stellar mass of the galaxy (10%–30%) occurred in these YMCs. We speculate that such sources of ionizing radiation boost the ionizing photon production efficiency, which eventually carves ionized channels that might favor the escape of Lyman continuum radiation. The survival of some of the clusters would make them the progenitors of massive and relatively metal-poor globular clusters in the local universe.
Abstract
We present spectra of the most massive quiescent galaxy yet spectroscopically confirmed at
z
> 3, verified via the detection of Balmer absorption features in the
H
- and
K
-bands of ...Keck/MOSFIRE. The spectra confirm a galaxy with no significant ongoing star formation, consistent with the lack of rest-frame UV flux and overall photometric spectral energy distribution. With a stellar mass of
at
z
= 3.493, this galaxy is nearly three times more massive than the highest redshift spectroscopically confirmed absorption-line-identified galaxy known. The star formation history of this quiescent galaxy implies that it formed >1000
M
⊙
yr
−1
for almost 0.5 Gyr beginning at
z
∼ 7.2, strongly suggestive that it is the descendant of massive dusty star-forming galaxies at 5 <
z
< 7 recently observed with ALMA. While galaxies with similarly extreme stellar masses are reproduced in some simulations at early times, such a lack of ongoing star formation is not seen there. This suggests the need for a quenching process that either starts earlier or is more rapid than that currently prescribed, challenging our current understanding of how ultra-massive galaxies form and evolve in the early universe.
Measurements of stellar properties of galaxies when the universe was less than one billion years old yield some of the only observational constraints on the onset of star formation. We present here ...the inclusion of Spitzer/IRAC imaging in the fitting of the spectral energy distribution of the seven highest-redshift galaxy candidates selected from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging of the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey. We find that for six out of eight HST-selected z ∼ 8 sources, the z ∼ 8 solutions are still strongly preferred over z ∼ 1-2 solutions after the inclusion of Spitzer fluxes, and two prefer a z ∼ 7 solution, which we defer to a later analysis. We find a wide range of intrinsic stellar masses (5 × 106-4 × 109 M ), star formation rates (0.2-14 M yr−1), and ages (30-600 Myr) among our sample. Of particular interest is A1763-1434, which shows evidence of an evolved stellar population (∼500 Myr) at z ∼ 8, implying that its first generation of star formation occurred <100 Myr after the Big Bang. SPT0615-JD, a spatially resolved z ∼ 10 candidate, remains at its high redshift, supported by deep Spitzer/IRAC data, and also shows some evidence for an evolved stellar population. Even with the lensed, bright apparent magnitudes of these z 8 candidates (H = 26.1-27.8 AB mag), only the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to exclude the possibility of abnormally strong nebular emission, large dust content, or some combination thereof, and confirm the presence of evolved stellar populations early in the universe.
Re-ionization of the intergalactic medium occurred in the early Universe at redshift z ≈ 6-11, following the formation of the first generation of stars. Those young galaxies (where the bulk of stars ...formed) at a cosmic age of less than about 500 million years (z ≲ 10) remain largely unexplored because they are at or beyond the sensitivity limits of existing large telescopes. Understanding the properties of these galaxies is critical to identifying the source of the radiation that re-ionized the intergalactic medium. Gravitational lensing by galaxy clusters allows the detection of high-redshift galaxies fainter than what otherwise could be found in the deepest images of the sky. Here we report multiband observations of the cluster MACS J1149+2223 that have revealed (with high probability) a gravitationally magnified galaxy from the early Universe, at a redshift of z = 9.6 ± 0.2 (that is, a cosmic age of 490 ± 15 million years, or 3.6 per cent of the age of the Universe). We estimate that it formed less than 200 million years after the Big Bang (at the 95 per cent confidence level), implying a formation redshift of ≲14. Given the small sky area that our observations cover, faint galaxies seem to be abundant at such a young cosmic age, suggesting that they may be the dominant source for the early re-ionization of the intergalactic medium.
Abstract
We reconstruct the two-dimensional (2D) matter distributions in 20 high-mass galaxy clusters selected from the CLASH survey by using the new approach of performing a joint weak gravitational ...lensing analysis of 2D shear and azimuthally averaged magnification measurements. This combination allows for a complete analysis of the field, effectively breaking the mass-sheet degeneracy. In a Bayesian framework, we simultaneously constrain the mass profile and morphology of each individual cluster, assuming an elliptical Navarro–Frenk–White halo characterized by the mass, concentration, projected axis ratio, and position angle (PA) of the projected major axis. We find that spherical mass estimates of the clusters from azimuthally averaged weak-lensing measurements in previous work are in excellent agreement with our results from a full 2D analysis. Combining all 20 clusters in our sample, we detect the elliptical shape of weak-lensing halos at the 5
σ
significance level within a scale of 2
. The median projected axis ratio is 0.67 ± 0.07 at a virial mass of
, which is in agreement with theoretical predictions from recent numerical simulations of the standard collisionless cold dark matter model. We also study misalignment statistics of the brightest cluster galaxy, X-ray, thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect, and strong-lensing morphologies with respect to the weak-lensing signal. Among the three baryonic tracers studied here, we find that the X-ray morphology is best aligned with the weak-lensing mass distribution, with a median misalignment angle of
. We also conduct a stacked quadrupole shear analysis of the 20 clusters assuming that the X-ray major axis is aligned with that of the projected mass distribution. This yields a consistent axis ratio of 0.67 ± 0.10, suggesting again a tight alignment between the intracluster gas and dark matter.
Abstract
We present the reduced images and multiwavelength catalog of the first JWST NIRCam extragalactic observations from the GLASS Early Release Science Program, obtained as coordinated parallels ...of the NIRISS observations of the Abell 2744 cluster. Images in seven bands (F090W, F115W, F150W, F200W, F277W, F356W, and F444W) have been reduced using an augmented version of the official JWST pipeline; we discuss the procedures adopted to remove or mitigate defects in the raw images. We obtain a multiband catalog by means of forced aperture photometry on point-spread function (PSF)-matched images at the position of F444W-detected sources. The catalog is intended to enable early scientific investigations, and it is optimized for faint galaxies; it contains 6368 sources, with limiting magnitude 29.7 at 5
σ
in F444W. We release both images and catalog in order to allow the community to become familiar with the JWST NIRCam data and evaluate their merit and limitations given the current level of knowledge of the instrument.
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