The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2023)
CEERS Key Paper. VII. JWST/MIRI Reveals a Faint Population of Galaxies at Cosmic Noon Unseen by Spitzer
- Allison Kirkpatrick,
- Guang Yang,
- Aurélien Le Bail,
- Greg Troiani,
- Eric F. Bell,
- Nikko J. Cleri,
- David Elbaz,
- Steven L. Finkelstein,
- Nimish P. Hathi,
- Michaela Hirschmann,
- Benne W. Holwerda,
- Dale D. Kocevski,
- Ray A. Lucas,
- Jed McKinney,
- Casey Papovich,
- Pablo G. Pérez-González,
- Alexander de la Vega,
- Micaela B. Bagley,
- Emanuele Daddi,
- Mark Dickinson,
- Henry C. Ferguson,
- Adriano Fontana,
- Andrea Grazian,
- Norman A. Grogin,
- Pablo Arrabal Haro,
- Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe,
- Lisa J. Kewley,
- Anton M. Koekemoer,
- Jennifer M. Lotz,
- Laura Pentericci,
- Nor Pirzkal,
- Swara Ravindranath,
- Rachel S. Somerville,
- Jonathan R. Trump,
- Stephen M. Wilkins,
- L. Y. Aaron. Yung
Affiliations
- Allison Kirkpatrick
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas , Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
- Guang Yang
- ORCiD
- Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen , P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands; SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research , Postbus 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
- Aurélien Le Bail
- ORCiD
- Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité , CEA, CNRS, AIM, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Greg Troiani
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas , Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
- Eric F. Bell
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan , 1085 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107, USA
- Nikko J. Cleri
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX 77843-4242, USA; George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX 77843-4242, USA
- David Elbaz
- ORCiD
- Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité , CEA, CNRS, AIM, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Steven L. Finkelstein
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Nimish P. Hathi
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , Baltimore, MD, USA
- Michaela Hirschmann
- ORCiD
- Institute of Physics , Laboratory of Galaxy Evolution, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Observatoire de Sauverny, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
- Benne W. Holwerda
- ORCiD
- Physics & Astronomy Department, University of Louisville , Louisville, KY 40292, USA
- Dale D. Kocevski
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Colby College , Waterville, ME 04901, USA
- Ray A. Lucas
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Jed McKinney
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Casey Papovich
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX 77843-4242, USA; George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX 77843-4242, USA
- Pablo G. Pérez-González
- ORCiD
- Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) , CSIC-INTA, Ctra. de Ajalvir km 4, Torrejón de Ardoz, E-28850, Madrid, Spain
- Alexander de la Vega
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California , 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
- Micaela B. Bagley
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA
- Emanuele Daddi
- ORCiD
- Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité , CEA, CNRS, AIM, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Mark Dickinson
- ORCiD
- NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
- Henry C. Ferguson
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , Baltimore, MD, USA
- Adriano Fontana
- ORCiD
- INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma , via di Frascati 33, I-00078 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy
- Andrea Grazian
- ORCiD
- INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova , Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, I-35122, Padova, Italy
- Norman A. Grogin
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , Baltimore, MD, USA
- Pablo Arrabal Haro
- ORCiD
- NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
- Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe
- ORCiD
- Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology , 84 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
- Lisa J. Kewley
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Anton M. Koekemoer
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Jennifer M. Lotz
- ORCiD
- Gemini Observatory/NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
- Laura Pentericci
- ORCiD
- INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma , via di Frascati 33, I-00078 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy
- Nor Pirzkal
- ORCiD
- ESA/AURA Space Telescope Science Institute
- Swara Ravindranath
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Rachel S. Somerville
- ORCiD
- Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute , 162 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
- Jonathan R. Trump
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196 Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Stephen M. Wilkins
- ORCiD
- Astronomy Centre, University of Sussex , Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK; Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, University of Malta , Msida MSD 2080, Malta
- L. Y. Aaron. Yung
- ORCiD
- Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad0b14
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 959,
no. 1
p. L7
Abstract
The Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science program observed the Extended Groth Strip (EGS) with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2022. In this paper, we discuss the four MIRI pointings that observed with longer-wavelength filters, including F770W, F1000W, F1280W, F1500W, F1800W, and F2100W. We compare the MIRI galaxies with the Spitzer/MIPS 24 μ m population in the EGS field. We find that MIRI can observe an order of magnitude deeper than MIPS in significantly shorter integration times, attributable to JWST's much larger aperture and MIRI’s improved sensitivity. MIRI is exceptionally good at finding faint ( L _IR < 10 ^10 L _⊙ ) galaxies at z ∼ 1–2. We find that a significant portion of MIRI galaxies are “mid-IR weak”—they have strong near-IR emission and relatively weaker mid-IR emission, and most of the star formation is unobscured. We present new IR templates that capture how the mid-to-near-IR emission changes with increasing infrared luminosity. We present two color–color diagrams to separate mid-IR weak galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN) from dusty star-forming galaxies and find that these color diagrams are most effective when used in conjunction with each other. We present the first number counts of 10 μ m sources and find that there are ≲10 IR AGN per MIRI pointing, possibly due to the difficulty of distinguishing AGN from intrinsically mid-IR weak galaxies (due to low metallicities or dust content). We conclude that MIRI is most effective at observing moderate-luminosity ( L _IR = 10 ^9 –10 ^10 L _⊙ ) galaxies at z = 1–2, and that photometry alone is not effective at identifying AGN within this faint population.
Keywords
