Early Results from GLASS-JWST. IX. First Spectroscopic Confirmation of Low-mass Quiescent Galaxies at z &gt; 2 with NIRISS

Marchesini, Danilo; Brammer, Gabriel; Morishita, Takahiro; Bergamini, P.; Bradač, Maruša; Roberts-Borsani, Guido; Strait, Victoria; Treu, Tommaso; Fontana, A.; Jones, Tucker; Santini, P.; Vulcani, Benedetta; Acebrón, Ana; Calabró, Antonello; Castellano, M.; Glazebrook, Karl; Grillo, C.; Mercurio, A.; Nanayakkara, Themiya; Rosati, P.; Tubthong, Chanita; Vanzella, E.

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/acaaac

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…This is consistent with the expected shape of the stellar mass function of red QGs, roughly peaking and flattening or turning over at ∼10 10.6 M e at these redshifts (Weaver et al 2022a) and revealing a steady buildup of lowermass QGs (Santini et al 2022). Promising low-mass QGs have already been confirmed with JWST/NIRISS at z ∼ 2.5 in the GLASS field (Marchesini et al 2023). We defer to future work a comprehensive analysis of the stellar mass functions of quiescent populations at these redshifts.…”

Section: A Look At Lower Massessupporting

confidence: 86%

An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at z > 3 in Public JWST Fields

Valentino

Brammer

Gould

et al. 2023

ApJ

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We present the results of a systematic search for candidate quiescent galaxies in the distant universe in 11 JWST fields with publicly available observations collected during the first 3 months of operations and covering an effective sky area of ∼145 arcmin2. We homogeneously reduce the new JWST data and combine them with existing observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. We select a robust sample of ∼80 candidate quiescent and quenching galaxies at 3 < z < 5 using two methods: (1) based on their rest-frame UVJ colors, and (2) a novel quantitative approach based on Gaussian mixture modeling of the near-UV − U, U − V, and V − J rest-frame color space, which is more sensitive to recently quenched objects. We measure comoving number densities of massive (M ⋆ ≥ 1010.6 M ⊙) quiescent galaxies consistent with previous estimates relying on ground-based observations, after homogenizing the results in the literature with our mass and redshift intervals. However, we find significant field-to-field variations of the number densities up to a factor of 2–3, highlighting the effect of cosmic variance and suggesting the presence of overdensities of red quiescent galaxies at z > 3, as could be expected for highly clustered massive systems. Importantly, JWST enables the robust identification of quenching/quiescent galaxy candidates at lower masses and higher redshifts than before, challenging standard formation scenarios. All data products, including the literature compilation, are made publicly available.

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Section: A Look At Lower Massessupporting

confidence: 86%

An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at z > 3 in Public JWST Fields

Valentino

Brammer

Gould

et al. 2023

ApJ

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“…Currently, only very few spectroscopically confirmed quiescent galaxies have been found out to z ∼ 3 − 5, when the Universe was 'already' 1-2 Gyr old [3,6,7,9,[33][34][35]. These systems provide the most stringent time constraints to date for the onset and duration of quiescence.…”

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confidence: 99%

Discovery of a quiescent galaxy at z=7.3

Looser¹,

D’Eugenio²,

Maiolino³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Local galaxies are known to broadly follow a bimodal distribution: actively star forming and quiescent systems (i.e. galaxies with no or negligible star formation activity at the epoch of observation). Why, when and how such bimodality was established, and whether it has been associated with different processes at different cosmic epochs, is still a key open question in extragalactic astrophysics. Directly observing early quiescent galaxies in the primordial Universe is therefore of utmost importance to constraining models of galaxy formation and transformation [1,2]. Early quiescent galaxies have been identified out to redshift z < 5 [3-9], and these are all found to be massive (M > 10 10 M ). Here we report the discovery of a quiescent galaxy at z=7.3, when the Universe was only 700 Myr old -about 5% of its current age. The JWST /NIRSpec spectrum of this galaxy from our JADES programme exhibits a complete absence of nebular emission lines, while the Balmer break and Lyα drop are unambiguously detected. We infer that this galaxy experienced a short and intense burst of star formation followed by rapid quenching, about 10-20 Myr before the epoch of observation. Particularly interesting is that the mass of this quiescent galaxy is only ∼4-6×10 8 M . This mass range is sensitive to various feedback mechanisms that can result in temporary or permanent quiescence. Therefore this galaxy represents a unique opportunity to learn more about galaxy formation and transformation in the early Universe [2,10].

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“…We note it has F200W = 27.1, considerably below the limit of ground-based K-band surveys (Straatman et al 2016). In a companion paper (Paper IX; Marchesini et al 2023) we present the first spectra from JWST of two low-mass (∼10 10 M e ) z ∼ 2 quiescent galaxies. These results augur well for the future prospects of JWST to measure the properties of quiescent galaxies at low masses.…”

Section: Discussion Of Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XV. Properties of the Faintest Red Sources in the NIRCAM Deep Fields

Glazebrook

Nanayakkara

Jacobs

et al. 2023

ApJL

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We present a first look at the reddest 2–5 μm sources found in deep images from the GLASS Early Release Science program. We undertake a general search, i.e., not looking for any particular spectral signatures, for sources detected only in bands redder than is reachable with the Hubble Space Telescope, and which would likely not have been identified in pre-JWST surveys. We search for sources down to AB ∼27 (corresponding to >10σ detection threshold) in any of the F200W to F444W filters, with a >1 magnitude excess relative to F090W to F150W bands. Fainter than F444W >25 we find 56 such sources of which 37 have reasonably constrained spectral energy distributions to which we can fit photometric redshifts. We find the majority of this population (∼65%) as 2 < z < 6 star-forming low-attenuation galaxies that are faint at rest-frame ultraviolet-optical wavelengths, have stellar masses 108.5–109.5 M ⊙, and have observed fluxes at >2 μm boosted by a combination of the Balmer break and emission lines. The typical implied rest equivalent widths are ∼200 Å with some extreme objects up to ∼1000 Å. This is in contrast with brighter magnitudes where the red sources tend to be z < 3 quiescent galaxies and dusty star-forming objects. Our general selection criteria for red sources allow us to independently identify other phenomena as diverse as extremely low-mass (∼108 M ⊙) quiescent galaxies at z < 1, recovering recently identified z > 11 galaxies and a very cool brown dwarf.

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Early Results from GLASS-JWST. IX. First Spectroscopic Confirmation of Low-mass Quiescent Galaxies at z > 2 with NIRISS

Cited by 15 publications

References 51 publications

An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at z > 3 in Public JWST Fields

An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at z > 3 in Public JWST Fields

Discovery of a quiescent galaxy at z=7.3

Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XV. Properties of the Faintest Red Sources in the NIRCAM Deep Fields

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