A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658.

Autor: Carnall AC; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK. adam.carnall@ed.ac.uk., McLure RJ; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., Dunlop JS; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., McLeod DJ; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., Wild V; School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK., Cullen F; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., Magee D; Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA., Begley R; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., Cimatti A; Department of Physics and Astronomy (DIFA), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.; INAF, Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio, Bologna, Italy., Donnan CT; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., Hamadouche ML; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., Jewell SM; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK., Walker S; Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Nature [Nature] 2023 Jul; Vol. 619 (7971), pp. 716-719. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 May 22.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06158-6
Abstrakt: The extremely rapid assembly of the earliest galaxies during the first billion years of cosmic history is a major challenge for our understanding of galaxy formation physics 1-5 . The advent of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has exacerbated this issue by confirming the existence of galaxies in substantial numbers as early as the first few hundred million years 6-8 . Perhaps even more surprisingly, in some galaxies, this initial highly efficient star formation rapidly shuts down, or quenches, giving rise to massive quiescent galaxies as little as 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang 9,10 . However, due to their faintness and red colour, it has proven extremely challenging to learn about these extreme quiescent galaxies, or to confirm whether any existed at earlier times. Here we report the spectroscopic confirmation of a massive quiescent galaxy, GS-9209, at redshift, z = 4.658, just 1.25 billion years after the Big Bang, using the JWST Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). From these data we infer a stellar mass of M *  = 3.8 ± 0.2 × 10 10  M ⊙ , which formed over a roughly 200 Myr period before this galaxy quenched its star-formation activity at [Formula: see text], when the Universe was approximately 800 Myr old. This galaxy is both a likely descendent of the highest-redshift submillimetre galaxies and quasars, and a likely progenitor for the dense, ancient cores of the most massive local galaxies.
(© 2023. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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