The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2023)
JWST UNCOVER: Extremely Red and Compact Object at z phot ≃ 7.6 Triply Imaged by A2744
- Lukas J. Furtak,
- Adi Zitrin,
- Adèle Plat,
- Seiji Fujimoto,
- Bingjie Wang,
- Erica J. Nelson,
- Ivo Labbé,
- Rachel Bezanson,
- Gabriel B. Brammer,
- Pieter van Dokkum,
- Ryan Endsley,
- Karl Glazebrook,
- Jenny E. Greene,
- Joel Leja,
- Sedona H. Price,
- Renske Smit,
- Daniel P. Stark,
- John R. Weaver,
- Katherine E. Whitaker,
- Hakim Atek,
- Jacopo Chevallard,
- Emma Curtis-Lake,
- Pratika Dayal,
- Anna Feltre,
- Marijn Franx,
- Yoshinobu Fudamoto,
- Danilo Marchesini,
- Lamiya A. Mowla,
- Richard Pan,
- Katherine A. Suess,
- Alba Vidal-García,
- Christina C. Williams
Affiliations
- Lukas J. Furtak
- ORCiD
- Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , P.O. Box 653, Be’er-Sheva 84105, Israel ; furtak@post.bgu.ac.il
- Adi Zitrin
- ORCiD
- Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , P.O. Box 653, Be’er-Sheva 84105, Israel ; furtak@post.bgu.ac.il
- Adèle Plat
- ORCiD
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona , 933 N Cherry Ave, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
- Seiji Fujimoto
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Bingjie Wang
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Computational & Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Erica J. Nelson
- ORCiD
- Department for Astrophysical and Planetary Science, University of Colorado , Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Ivo Labbé
- ORCiD
- Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology , Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
- Rachel Bezanson
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
- Gabriel B. Brammer
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, København N, DK-2200, Denmark
- Pieter van Dokkum
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Yale University , New Haven, CT 06511, USA
- Ryan Endsley
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Karl Glazebrook
- ORCiD
- Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology , Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
- Jenny E. Greene
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, 4 Ivy Lane, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Joel Leja
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Computational & Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Sedona H. Price
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
- Renske Smit
- ORCiD
- Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University , 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L3 5RF, UK
- Daniel P. Stark
- ORCiD
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona , 933 N Cherry Ave, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
- John R. Weaver
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Katherine E. Whitaker
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, København N, DK-2200, Denmark; Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Hakim Atek
- ORCiD
- Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne Université , 98bis Boulevard Arago, F-75014, Paris, France
- Jacopo Chevallard
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Oxford , Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3RH, UK
- Emma Curtis-Lake
- ORCiD
- Centre for Astrophysics Research, Department of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire , Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK
- Pratika Dayal
- ORCiD
- Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen , P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
- Anna Feltre
- ORCiD
- INAF—Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio , Via Gobetti 93/3, I-40129, Bologna, Italy
- Marijn Franx
- ORCiD
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , P.O.Box 9513, NL-2300 AA Leiden, The Netherlands
- Yoshinobu Fudamoto
- ORCiD
- Waseda Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University , 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan; National Astronomical Observatory of Japan , 2-21-1, Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan
- Danilo Marchesini
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University , 574 Boston Ave., Medford, MA 02155, USA
- Lamiya A. Mowla
- ORCiD
- Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3H4, Canada
- Richard Pan
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University , 574 Boston Ave., Medford, MA 02155, USA
- Katherine A. Suess
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz , 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Department of Physics, Stanford University , Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- Alba Vidal-García
- ORCiD
- Observatorio Astronómico Nacional , C/ Alfonso XII 3, E-28014 Madrid, Spain
- Christina C. Williams
- ORCiD
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona , 933 N Cherry Ave, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA; NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acdc9d
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 952,
no. 2
p. 142
Abstract
Recent JWST/NIRCam imaging taken for the ultra-deep UNCOVER program reveals a very red dropout object at z _phot ≃ 7.6, triply imaged by the galaxy cluster A2744 ( z _d = 0.308). All three images are very compact, i.e., unresolved, with a delensed size upper limit of r _e ≲ 35 pc. The images have apparent magnitudes of m _F444W ∼ 25−26 AB, and the magnification-corrected absolute UV magnitude of the source is M _UV,1450 = −16.81 ± 0.09. From the sum of observed fluxes and from a spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis, we obtain estimates of the bolometric luminosities of the source of L _bol ≳ 10 ^43 erg s ^−1 and L _bol ∼ 10 ^44 –10 ^46 erg s ^−1 , respectively. Based on its compact, point-like appearance, its position in color–color space, and the SED analysis, we tentatively conclude that this object is a UV-faint dust-obscured quasar-like object, i.e., an active galactic nucleus at high redshift. We also discuss other alternative origins for the object’s emission features, including a massive star cluster, Population III, supermassive, or dark stars, or a direct-collapse black hole. Although populations of red galaxies at similar photometric redshifts have been detected with JWST, this object is unique in that its high-redshift nature is corroborated geometrically by lensing, that it is unresolved despite being magnified—and thus intrinsically even more compact—and that it occupies notably distinct regions in both size–luminosity and color–color space. Planned UNCOVER JWST/NIRSpec observations, scheduled in Cycle 1, will enable a more detailed analysis of this object.
Keywords
- High-redshift galaxies
- Low-luminosity active galactic nuclei
- Reionization
- Strong gravitational lensing
