Confirmation and refutation of very luminous galaxies in the early Universe

Arrabal Haro, Pablo; Dickinson, Mark; Finkelstein, Steven L.; Kartaltepe, Jeyhan S.; Donnan, Callum T.; Burgarella, Denis; Carnall, Adam C.; Cullen, Fergus; Dunlop, James S.; Fernández, Vital; Fujimoto, Seiji; Jung, Intae; Krips, Melanie; Larson, Rebecca L.; Papovich, Casey; Pérez-González, Pablo G.; Amorín, Ricardo O.; Bagley, Micaela B.; Buat, Véronique; Casey, Caitlin M.; Chworowsky, Katherine; Cohen, Seth H.; Ferguson, Henry C.; Giavalisco, Mauro; Huertas-Company, Marc; Hutchison, Taylor A.; Kocevski, Dale D.; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Lucas, Ray A.; McLeod, Derek J.; McLure, Ross J.; Pirzkal, Norbert; Seillé, Lise-Marie; Trump, Jonathan R.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; Wilkins, Stephen M.; Zavala, Jorge A.
Bibliographical reference

Nature

Advertised on:
10
2023
Journal
Number of authors
37
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
149
Refereed citations
92
Description
During the first 500 million years of cosmic history, the first stars and galaxies formed, seeding the Universe with heavy elements and eventually reionizing the intergalactic medium1-3. Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered a surprisingly high abundance of candidates for early star-forming galaxies, with distances (redshifts, z), estimated from multiband photometry, as large as z ≈ 16, far beyond pre-JWST limits4-9. Although such photometric redshifts are generally robust, they can suffer from degeneracies and occasionally catastrophic errors. Spectroscopic measurements are required to validate these sources and to reliably quantify physical properties that can constrain galaxy formation models and cosmology10. Here we present JWST spectroscopy that confirms redshifts for two very luminous galaxies with z > 11, and also demonstrates that another candidate with suggested z ≈ 16 instead has z = 4.9, with an unusual combination of nebular line emission and dust reddening that mimics the colours expected for much more distant objects. These results reinforce evidence for the early, rapid formation of remarkably luminous galaxies while also highlighting the necessity of spectroscopic verification. The large abundance of bright, early galaxies may indicate shortcomings in current galaxy formation models or deviations from physical properties (such as the stellar initial mass function) that are generally believed to hold at later times.
Related projects
Group members
Traces of Galaxy Formation: Stellar populations, Dynamics and Morphology
We are a large, diverse, and very active research group aiming to provide a comprehensive picture for the formation of galaxies in the Universe. Rooted in detailed stellar population analysis, we are constantly exploring and developing new tools and ideas to understand how galaxies came to be what we now observe.
Ignacio
Martín Navarro
Type