Efficient formation of a massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.9
De Graaff A, Setton DJ, Brammer G, Cutler S, Suess KA, Labbé I, Leja J, Weibel A, Maseda MV, Whitaker KE, Bezanson R, Boogaard LA, Cleri NJ, De Lucia G, Franx M, Greene JE, Hirschmann M, Matthee JJ, Mcconachie I, Naidu RP, Oesch PA, Price SH, Rix HW, Valentino F, Wang B, Williams CC. 2024. Efficient formation of a massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.9. Nature Astronomy.
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Author
De Graaff, Anna;
Setton, David J.;
Brammer, Gabriel;
Cutler, Sam;
Suess, Katherine A.;
Labbé, Ivo;
Leja, Joel;
Weibel, Andrea;
Maseda, Michael V.;
Whitaker, Katherine E.;
Bezanson, Rachel;
Boogaard, Leindert A.
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All
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Abstract
Within the established framework of structure formation, galaxies start as systems of low stellar mass and gradually grow into far more massive galaxies. The existence of massive galaxies in the first billion years of the Universe, as suggested by recent observations, seems to challenge this model, as such galaxies would require highly efficient conversion of baryons into stars. An even greater challenge in this epoch is the existence of massive galaxies that have already ceased forming stars. However, robust detections of early massive quiescent galaxies have been challenging due to the coarse wavelength sampling of photometric surveys. Here we report the spectroscopic confirmation with the James Webb Space Telescope of the quiescent galaxy RUBIES-EGS-QG-1 at redshift z = 4.90, 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. Deep stellar absorption features in the spectrum reveal that the stellar mass of the galaxy of 1011 M⊙ formed in a short 200 Myr burst of star formation, after which star formation activity dropped rapidly and persistently. According to current galaxy formation models, systems with such rapid stellar mass growth and early quenching are too rare to plausibly occur in the small area probed spectroscopically with JWST. Instead, the discovery of RUBIES-EGS-QG-1 implies that early massive quiescent galaxies can be quenched earlier or exhaust gas available for star formation more efficiently than assumed at present.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2024-11-28
Journal Title
Nature Astronomy
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Springer Nature
Acknowledgement
We thank V. Buat, D. Burgarella and J. Zavala for sharing their NOEMA data and constraints on the dust-obscured star formation of RUBIES-EGS-QG-1. This work is partially based on observations carried out under project number W20CK with the IRAM NOEMA Interferometer. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain). We thank C. Lagos for providing measurements from the SHARK simulation. This research was supported by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, through ISSI International Team Project No. 562. M.V.M., J.L. and B.W. acknowledge funding support from NASA through JWST-GO-4233. The Cosmic Dawn Center is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (Grant No. DNRF140 to G.B., P.A.O. and K.E.W.). This work has received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (Contract No. MB22.00072) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (Project Grant No. 200020_207349 to P.A.O.). Support for this work was provided by the Brinson Foundation through a Brinson Prize Fellowship grant (D.J.S.). K.A.S. is a NHFP Hubble Fellow. Support for this work was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship Grant No. HST-HF2-51515.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS 5-26555 (R.P.N.). This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. The observations in this work are associated with programmes ERS-1345, GO-2234, DDT-2750 and GO-4233. We gratefully acknowledge the CEERS and DDT-2750 teams for developing their observing programme with a zero-exclusive-access period. Open access funding provided by Max Planck Society.
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Cite this
De Graaff A, Setton DJ, Brammer G, et al. Efficient formation of a massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.9. Nature Astronomy. 2024. doi:10.1038/s41550-024-02424-3
De Graaff, A., Setton, D. J., Brammer, G., Cutler, S., Suess, K. A., Labbé, I., … Williams, C. C. (2024). Efficient formation of a massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.9. Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02424-3
De Graaff, Anna, David J. Setton, Gabriel Brammer, Sam Cutler, Katherine A. Suess, Ivo Labbé, Joel Leja, et al. “Efficient Formation of a Massive Quiescent Galaxy at Redshift 4.9.” Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02424-3.
A. De Graaff et al., “Efficient formation of a massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.9,” Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature, 2024.
De Graaff A, Setton DJ, Brammer G, Cutler S, Suess KA, Labbé I, Leja J, Weibel A, Maseda MV, Whitaker KE, Bezanson R, Boogaard LA, Cleri NJ, De Lucia G, Franx M, Greene JE, Hirschmann M, Matthee JJ, Mcconachie I, Naidu RP, Oesch PA, Price SH, Rix HW, Valentino F, Wang B, Williams CC. 2024. Efficient formation of a massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.9. Nature Astronomy.
De Graaff, Anna, et al. “Efficient Formation of a Massive Quiescent Galaxy at Redshift 4.9.” Nature Astronomy, Springer Nature, 2024, doi:10.1038/s41550-024-02424-3.
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