To High Redshift and Low Mass: Exploring the Emergence of Quenched Galaxies and Their Environments at 3 < z < 6 in the Ultra-deep JADES MIRI F770W Parallel

To High Redshift and Low Mass: Exploring the Emergence of Quenched Galaxies and Their Environments at 3 < z < 6 in the Ultra-deep JADES MIRI F770W Parallel

Oct 25, 2024·
Stacey Alberts
,
Christina C. Williams
Jakob M. Helton
Jakob M. Helton
,
Katherine A. Suess
,
Zhiyuan Ji
,
Irene Shivaei
,
Jianwei Lyu
,
George Rieke
,
William M. Baker
,
Nina Bonaventura
,
Andrew J. Bunker
,
Stefano Carniani
,
Stephane Charlot
,
Emma Curtis-Lake
,
Francesco D'Eugenio
,
Daniel J. Eisenstein
,
Anna De Graaff
,
Kevin N. Hainline
,
Ryan Hausen
,
Benjamin D. Johnson
,
Roberto Maiolino
,
Eleonora Parlanti
,
Marcia J. Rieke
,
Brant E. Robertson
,
Yang Sun
,
Sandro Tacchella
,
Christopher N. A. Willmer
,
Chris J. Willott
Abstract
We present the robust selection of high-redshift quiescent galaxies (QG) and poststarburst (PSB) galaxies using ultra-deep NIRCam and MIRI imaging from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). At 3<z<63 < z < 6 , MIRI 7.7 μm7.7\ \mu\mathrm{m} imaging provides rest-frame JJ band, which is commonly used to break the degeneracy between old stellar populations and dust attenuation at lower redshifts. We identify 2323 passively evolving galaxies in UVJ color space in a mass-limited (log10(M/M)8.5\mathrm{log}_{10}(M_{\ast}/M_{\odot}) \geq 8.5 ) sample over 8.8 arcmin28.8\ \mathrm{arcmin}^{2} . An evaluation of the contribution of the 7.7 μm7.7\ \mu\mathrm{m} shows that JADES-like NIRCam coverage (9+9+ photometric bands) can compensate for lacking the JJ band at these redshifts; however, more limited three-band selections perform better with MIRI. Our sample is characterized by rapid quenching timescales (100600 Myr\sim 100-600\ \mathrm{Myr} ) with formation redshifts zform9z_{\mathrm{form}} \leq 9 and includes a potential record-holding massive QG at and two QGs with evidence for significant residual dust content (AV12A_{V} \sim 1-2 ). In addition, we present a large sample of 1212 log10(M/M)=8.59.5\mathrm{log}_{10}(M_{\ast}/M_{\odot}) = 8.5-9.5 PSBs, demonstrating that UVJ selection can be extended to low mass. An analysis of the environment of our sample reveals that the group known as the Cosmic Rose contains a massive QG and a dust-obscured star-forming galaxy (a so-called Jekyll and Hyde pair) plus three additional QGs within 20 kpc\sim 20\ \mathrm{kpc} . Moreover, the Cosmic Rose is part of a larger overdensity at z3.7z \sim 3.7 , which contains 7/127/12 of our low-mass PSBs. Another four low-mass PSBs are members of an overdensity at z3.4z \sim 3.4 ; this result strongly indicates low-mass PSBs are preferentially associated with overdense environments at z>3z > 3 .
Type
Publication
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 975, Issue 1, id.85, 25 pages