scholarly journals Signature of the first galaxies in JWST deep field observations

2019 ◽  
Vol 485 (4) ◽  
pp. 5939-5950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myoungwon Jeon ◽  
Volker Bromm

Abstract We examine the assembly process and the observability of a first galaxy ($M_{\rm vir}\approx 10^9{\, \rm M_\odot }$ at z ≈ 8) with cosmological zoom-in, hydrodynamic simulations, including the radiative, mechanical, and chemical feedback exerted by the first generations of stars. To assess the detectability of such dwarf systems with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (jwst), we construct the spectral energy distribution for the simulated galaxy in a post-processing fashion. We find that while the non-ionizing UV continuum emitted by the simulated galaxy is expected to be below the jwst detection limit, the galaxy might be detectable using its nebular emission, specifically in the H α recombination line. This requires that the galaxy experiences an active starburst with a star formation rate of $\dot{M}_{\ast }\gtrsim 0.1 {\, \rm M_\odot }\rm{\,yr}^{-1}$ at z ≈ 9. Due to the bursty nature of star formation in the first galaxies, the time interval for strong nebular emission is short, less than 2–3 Myr. The probability of capturing such primordial dwarf galaxies during the observable part of their duty cycle is thus low, resulting in number densities of the order of one source in a single pointing with MIRI onboard the jwst, for very deep exposures. Gravitational lensing, however, will boost their observability beyond this conservative baseline. The first sources of light will thus come firmly within our reach.

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S341) ◽  
pp. 226-230
Author(s):  
Christian Binggeli ◽  
Erik Zackrisson ◽  
Xiangcheng Ma ◽  
Akio K. Inoue ◽  
Anton Vikaeus ◽  
...  

AbstractRecently, spectroscopic detections of O[III] 88 μm and Ly-α emission lines from the z ≍ 9.1 galaxy MACS1149-JD1 have been presented, and with these, some interesting properties of this galaxy were uncovered. One such property is that MACS1149-JD1 exhibits a significant Balmer break at around rest-frame 4000 Å, which may indicate that the galaxy has experienced large variations in star formation rate prior to z ∼ 9, with a rather long period of low star formation activity. While some simulations predict large variations in star formation activity in high-redshift galaxies, it is unclear whether the simulations can reproduce the kind of variations seen in MACS1149-JD1. Here, we utilize synthetic spectra of simulated galaxies from two simulation suites in order to study to what extent these can accurately reproduce the spectral features (specifically the Balmer break) observed in MACS1149-JD1. We show that while the simulations used in this study produce galaxies with varying star formation histories, galaxies such as MACS1149-JD1 would be very rare in the simulations. In principle, future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope may tell us if MACS1149-JD1 represents something rare, or if such galaxies are more common than predicted by current simulations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 640 ◽  
pp. A67
Author(s):  
O. B. Kauffmann ◽  
O. Le Fèvre ◽  
O. Ilbert ◽  
J. Chevallard ◽  
C. C. Williams ◽  
...  

We present a new prospective analysis of deep multi-band imaging with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In this work, we investigate the recovery of high-redshift 5 <  z <  12 galaxies through extensive image simulations of accepted JWST programs, including the Early Release Science in the EGS field and the Guaranteed Time Observations in the HUDF. We introduced complete samples of ∼300 000 galaxies with stellar masses of log(M*/M⊙) > 6 and redshifts of 0 <  z <  15, as well as galactic stars, into realistic mock NIRCam, MIRI, and HST images to properly describe the impact of source blending. We extracted the photometry of the detected sources, as in real images, and estimated the physical properties of galaxies through spectral energy distribution fitting. We find that the photometric redshifts are primarily limited by the availability of blue-band and near-infrared medium-band imaging. The stellar masses and star formation rates are recovered within 0.25 and 0.3 dex, respectively, for galaxies with accurate photometric redshifts. Brown dwarfs contaminating the z >  5 galaxy samples can be reduced to < 0.01 arcmin−2 with a limited impact on galaxy completeness. We investigate multiple high-redshift galaxy selection techniques and find that the best compromise between completeness and purity at 5 <  z <  10 using the full redshift posterior probability distributions. In the EGS field, the galaxy completeness remains higher than 50% at magnitudes mUV <  27.5 and at all redshifts, and the purity is maintained above 80 and 60% at z ≤ 7 and 10, respectively. The faint-end slope of the galaxy UV luminosity function is recovered with a precision of 0.1–0.25, and the cosmic star formation rate density within 0.1 dex. We argue in favor of additional observing programs covering larger areas to better constrain the bright end.


Author(s):  
Christian Binggeli ◽  
Erik Zackrisson ◽  
Xiangcheng Ma ◽  
Akio K Inoue ◽  
Anton Vikaeus ◽  
...  

Abstract Photometric observations of the spectroscopically confirmed z ≈ 9.1 galaxy MACS1149-JD1 have indicated the presence of a prominent Balmer break in its spectral energy distribution, which may be interpreted as due to very large fluctuations in its past star formation activity. In this paper, we investigate to what extent contemporary simulations of high-redshift galaxies produce star formation rate variations sufficiently large to reproduce the observed Balmer break of MACS1149-JD1. We find that several independent galaxy simulations are unable to account for Balmer breaks of the inferred size, suggesting that MACS1149-JD1 either must be a very rare type of object or that our simulations are missing some key ingredient. We present predictions of spectroscopic Balmer break strength distributions for z ≈ 7–9 galaxies that may be tested through observations with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope and also discuss the impact that various assumptions on dust reddening, Lyman continuum leakage and deviations from a standard stellar initial mass function would have on the results.


Author(s):  
A. Katsianis ◽  
E. Tescari ◽  
J. S. B. Wyithe

AbstractThe relation between the star-formation Rate and stellar mass (M⋆) of galaxies represents a fundamental constraint on galaxy formation, and has been studied extensively both in observations and cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. However, the observed amplitude of the star-formation rate—stellar mass relation has not been successfully reproduced in simulations, indicating either that the halo accretion history and baryonic physics are poorly understood/modelled or that observations contain biases. In this paper, we examine the evolution of the SFR −M⋆relation ofz~ 1–4 galaxies and display the inconsistency between observed relations that are obtained using different techniques. We employ cosmological hydrodynamic simulations from various groups which are tuned to reproduce a range of observables and compare these with a range of observed SFR −M⋆relations. We find that numerical results are consistent with observations that use Spectral Energy Distribution techniques to estimate star-formation rates, dust corrections, and stellar masses. On the contrary, simulations are not able to reproduce results that were obtained by combining only UV and IR luminosities (UV+IR). These imply star-formation rates at a fixed stellar mass that are larger almost by a factor of 5 than those of Spectral Energy Distribution measurements forz~ 1.5–4. Forz< 1.5, the results from simulations, Spectral Energy Distribution fitting techniques and IR+UV conversion agree well. We find that surveys that preferably select star-forming galaxies (e.g. by adopting Lyman-break or blue selection) typically predict a larger median/average star-formation rate at a fixed stellar mass especially for high mass objects, with respect to mass selected samples and hydrodynamic simulations. Furthermore, we find remarkable agreement between the numerical results from various authors who have employed different cosmological codes and run simulations with different resolutions. This is interesting for two reasons. (A) simulations can produce realistic populations of galaxies within representative cosmological volumes even at relatively modest resolutions. (B) It is likely that current numerical codes that rely on similar subgrid multiphase interstellar medium models and are tuned to reproduce statistical properties of galaxies, produce similar results for the SFR −M⋆relation by construction, regardless of resolution, box size and, to some extent, the adopted feedback prescriptions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (3) ◽  
pp. 3240-3253
Author(s):  
Amanda R Lopes ◽  
Eduardo Telles ◽  
Jorge Melnick

ABSTRACT We discuss the implications of assuming different star formation histories (SFH) in the relation between star formation rate (SFR) and mass derived by the spectral energy distribution fitting (SED). Our analysis focuses on a sample of H ii galaxies, dwarf starburst galaxies spectroscopically selected through their strong narrow emission lines in SDSS DR13 at z &lt; 0.4, cross-matched with photometric catalogues from GALEX, SDSS, UKIDSS, and WISE. We modelled and fitted the SEDs with the code CIGALE adopting different descriptions of SFH. By adding information from different independent studies, we find that H ii galaxies are best described by episodic SFHs including an old (10 Gyr), an intermediate age (100−1000 Myr) and a recent population with ages &lt; 10 Myr. H ii galaxies agree with the SFR−M* relation from local star-forming galaxies, and only lie above such relation when the current SFR is adopted as opposed to the average over the entire SFH. The SFR−M* demonstrated not to be a good tool to provide additional information about the SFH of H ii galaxies, as different SFH present a similar behaviour with a spread of &lt;0.1 dex.


2019 ◽  
Vol 631 ◽  
pp. A38 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Lianou ◽  
P. Barmby ◽  
A. A. Mosenkov ◽  
M. Lehnert ◽  
O. Karczewski

Aims. We derived the dust properties for 753 local galaxies and examine how these relate to some of their physical properties. We present the derived dust emission properties, including model spectral energy distribution (SEDs), star formation rates (SFRs) and stellar masses, as well as their relations. Methods. We modelled the global dust-SEDs for 753 galaxies, treated statistically as an ensemble within a hierarchical Bayesian dust-SED modelling approach, so as to derive their infrared (IR) emission properties. To create the observed dust-SEDs, we used a multi-wavelength set of observations, ranging from near-IR to far-IR-to-submillimeter wavelengths. The model-derived properties are the dust masses (Mdust), the average interstellar radiation field intensities (Uav), the mass fraction of very small dust grains (“QPAH” fraction), as well as their standard deviations. In addition, we used mid-IR observations to derive SFR and stellar masses, quantities independent of the dust-SED modelling. Results. We derive distribution functions of the properties for the galaxy ensemble and as a function of galaxy type. The mean value of Mdust for the early-type galaxies (ETGs) is lower than that for the late-type and irregular galaxies (LTGs and Irs, respectively), despite ETGs and LTGs having stellar masses spanning across the whole range observed. The Uav and “QPAH” fraction show no difference among different galaxy types. When fixing Uav to the Galactic value, the derived “QPAH” fraction varies across the Galactic value (0.071). The specific SFR increases with galaxy type, while this is not the case for the dust-specific SFR (SFR/Mdust), showing an almost constant star formation efficiency per galaxy type. The galaxy sample is characterised by a tight relationship between the dust mass and the stellar mass for the LTGs and Irs, while ETGs scatter around this relation and tend towards smaller dust masses. While the relation indicates that Mdust may fundamentally be linked to M⋆, metallicity and Uav are the second parameter driving the scatter, which we investigate in a forthcoming work. We used the extended Kennicutt–Schmidt (KS) law to estimate the gas mass and the gas-to-dust mass ratio (GDR). The gas mass derived from the extended KS law is on average ∼20% higher than that derived from the KS law, and a large standard deviation indicates the importance of the average star formation present to regulate star formation and gas supply. The average GDR for the LTGs and Irs is 370, and including the ETGs gives an average of 550.


2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (2) ◽  
pp. 2323-2338
Author(s):  
Thomas M Jackson ◽  
D J Rosario ◽  
D M Alexander ◽  
J Scholtz ◽  
Stuart McAlpine ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present data from 72 low-redshift, hard X-ray selected active galactic nucleus (AGN) taken from the Swift–BAT 58 month catalogue. We utilize spectral energy distribution fitting to the optical to infrared photometry in order to estimate host galaxy properties. We compare this observational sample to a volume- and flux-matched sample of AGN from the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) hydrodynamical simulations in order to verify how accurately the simulations can reproduce observed AGN host galaxy properties. After correcting for the known +0.2 dex offset in the SFRs between EAGLE and previous observations, we find agreement in the star formation rate (SFR) and X-ray luminosity distributions; however, we find that the stellar masses in EAGLE are 0.2–0.4 dex greater than the observational sample, which consequently leads to lower specific star formation rates (sSFRs). We compare these results to our previous study at high redshift, finding agreement in both the observations and simulations, whereby the widths of sSFR distributions are similar (∼0.4–0.6 dex) and the median of the SFR distributions lie below the star-forming main sequence by ∼0.3–0.5 dex across all samples. We also use EAGLE to select a sample of AGN host galaxies at high and low redshift and follow their characteristic evolution from z = 8 to z = 0. We find similar behaviour between these two samples, whereby star formation is quenched when the black hole goes through its phase of most rapid growth. Utilizing EAGLE we find that 23 per cent of AGN selected at z ∼ 0 are also AGN at high redshift, and that their host galaxies are among the most massive objects in the simulation. Overall, we find EAGLE reproduces the observations well, with some minor inconsistencies (∼0.2 dex in stellar masses and ∼0.4 dex in sSFRs).


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S352) ◽  
pp. 194-198
Author(s):  
Christina C. Williams

AbstractWe discuss the serendipitous discovery of a dusty high-redshift galaxy in a small (8 arcmin2) ALMA 3-mm survey Williams et al. (2019). The galaxy was previously unknown and is absent from existing multi-wavelength catalogs (“ALMA-only”). Using the ALMA position as prior, we perform forced deblended photometry to constrain its spectral energy distribution. The spectral energy distribution is well described by a massive (M* = 1010.8 M⊙) and highly obscured (AV ∼ 4) galaxy at redshift z = 5.5 ± 1.1 with star formation rate ∼ 300 M⊙yr−1. Our small survey area implies an uncertain but large contribution to the cosmic star formation rate density, similar to the contribution from all ultraviolet-selected galaxies combined at this redshift. This galaxy likely traces an abundant population of massive galaxies absent from current samples of infrared-selected or sub-millimeter galaxies, but with larger space densities, higher duty cycles, and significant contribution to the cosmic star-formation rate and stellar mass densities.


1996 ◽  
Vol 175 ◽  
pp. 588-590
Author(s):  
D. Villani ◽  
S. Di Serego Alighieri

Stellar populations of high redshift radio galaxies (HzRG) (z up to 4.2) are the oldest stellar systems known, that is the ones formed at the earliest cosmological epochs. Therefore they are the best objects for providing us with information about the epoch of galaxy formation. The information on the stellar populations in HzRG are obtained from the study of their Integrated Spectral Energy Distribution (ISED) which are gathered both from spectra and integrated magnitudes. The most common approach for the interpretation of colors and spectral features of the energy distribution of galaxies is the Evolutionary Population Synthesis (EPS), which has been introduced for the first time by Tinsley in 1972. EPS models have often been used in the past to interpret the ISED of HzRG (Chambers & Charlot 1990; Lilly & Longair 1984; di Serego Alighieri et al. 1994) in order to draw conclusions on the age of the stellar populations and therefore on the epoch of galaxy formation. The results are sometimes conflicting and a number of very recent EPS models have become available (Bressan et al. 1995; Bruzual & Charlot 1993; Buzzoni 1989; Guiderdoni & Rocca-Volmerange 1987): we are therefore analysing the differences between the various EPS models with the aim of assessing their suitability to study the stellar population at early epochs. The EPS models assume for stars a given Initial Mass Function(IMF) as well as a Star Formation Rate (SFR). Then one can compute the number of stars with given mass present in the galaxy as a function of time. The position of each star in the HR diagram is determined by means of the isochrones, which are calculated from stellar evolutionary models. The ISED of a galaxy is obtained from the superposition of the spectra of single stars obtained from a stellar spectral library. Thus these models describe the galaxy ISED as a function of the time, giving a complete evolutionary picture.


2018 ◽  
Vol 619 ◽  
pp. A15 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Girard ◽  
M. Dessauges-Zavadsky ◽  
D. Schaerer ◽  
J. Richard ◽  
K. Nakajima ◽  
...  

Observations have shown that massive star-forming clumps are present in the internal structure of high-redshift galaxies. One way to study these clumps in detail with a higher spatial resolution is by exploiting the power of strong gravitational lensing which stretches images on the sky. In this work, we present an analysis of the clumpy galaxy A68-HLS115 at z = 1.5858, located behind the cluster Abell 68, but strongly lensed by a cluster galaxy member. Resolved observations with SINFONI/VLT in the near-infrared (NIR) show Hα, Hβ, [NII], and [OIII] emission lines. Combined with images covering the B band to the far-infrared (FIR) and CO(2–1) observations, this makes this galaxy one of the only sources for which such multi-band observations are available and for which it is possible to study the properties of resolved star-forming clumps and to perform a detailed analysis of the integrated properties, kinematics, and metallicity. We obtain a stability of υrot/σ0 = 2.73 by modeling the kinematics, which means that the galaxy is dominated by rotation, but this ratio also indicates that the disk is marginally stable. We find a high intrinsic velocity dispersion of 80 ± 10 km s−1 that could be explained by the high gas fraction of fgas = 0.75 ± 0.15 observed in this galaxy. This high fgas and the observed sSFR of 3.12 Gyr−1 suggest that the disk turbulence and instabilities are mostly regulated by incoming gas (available gas reservoir for star formation). The direct measure of the Toomre stability criterion of Qcrit = 0.70 could also indicate the presence of a quasi-stable thick disk. Finally, we identify three clumps in the Hα map which have similar velocity dispersions, metallicities, and seem to be embedded in the rotating disk. These three clumps contribute together to ∼40% on the SFRHα of the galaxy and show a star formation rate density about ∼100 times higher than HII regions in the local Universe.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document