The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2024)
COSMOS-Web: Intrinsically Luminous z ≳ 10 Galaxy Candidates Test Early Stellar Mass Assembly
- Caitlin M. Casey,
- Hollis B. Akins,
- Marko Shuntov,
- Olivier Ilbert,
- Louise Paquereau,
- Maximilien Franco,
- Christopher C. Hayward,
- Steven L. Finkelstein,
- Michael Boylan-Kolchin,
- Brant E. Robertson,
- Natalie Allen,
- Malte Brinch,
- Olivia R. Cooper,
- Xuheng Ding,
- Nicole E. Drakos,
- Andreas L. Faisst,
- Seiji Fujimoto,
- Steven Gillman,
- Santosh Harish,
- Michaela Hirschmann,
- Shuowen Jin,
- Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe,
- Anton M. Koekemoer,
- Vasily Kokorev,
- Daizhong Liu,
- Arianna S. Long,
- Georgios Magdis,
- Claudia Maraston,
- Crystal L. Martin,
- Henry Joy McCracken,
- Jed McKinney,
- Bahram Mobasher,
- Jason Rhodes,
- R. Michael Rich,
- David B. Sanders,
- John D. Silverman,
- Sune Toft,
- Aswin P. Vijayan,
- John R. Weaver,
- Stephen M. Wilkins,
- Lilan Yang,
- Jorge A. Zavala
Affiliations
- Caitlin M. Casey
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]; Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark
- Hollis B. Akins
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Marko Shuntov
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark
- Olivier Ilbert
- ORCiD
- Aix Marseille Université , CNRS, CNES, LAM, Marseille, France
- Louise Paquereau
- ORCiD
- Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS and Sorbonne Université , 98 bis boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France
- Maximilien Franco
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Christopher C. Hayward
- ORCiD
- Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute , 162 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
- Steven L. Finkelstein
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Michael Boylan-Kolchin
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Brant E. Robertson
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California , Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
- Natalie Allen
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark
- Malte Brinch
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; DTU-Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark , Elektrovej 327, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
- Olivia R. Cooper
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Xuheng Ding
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo , Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan
- Nicole E. Drakos
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California , Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
- Andreas L. Faisst
- ORCiD
- Caltech/IPAC , MS 314-6, 1200 E. California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Seiji Fujimoto
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Steven Gillman
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; DTU-Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark , Elektrovej 327, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
- Santosh Harish
- ORCiD
- Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy , Rochester Institute of Technology, 84 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
- Michaela Hirschmann
- ORCiD
- Institute of Physics, GalSpec, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne , Observatoire de Sauverny, Chemin Pegasi 51, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland; INAF , Astronomical Observatory of Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy
- Shuowen Jin
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; DTU-Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark , Elektrovej 327, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
- 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
- Anton M. Koekemoer
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Vasily Kokorev
- ORCiD
- Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen , PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
- Daizhong Liu
- ORCiD
- Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) , Giessenbachstr. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
- Arianna S. Long
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Georgios Magdis
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark; DTU-Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark , Elektrovej 327, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
- Claudia Maraston
- ORCiD
- Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth , Dennis Sciama Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK
- Crystal L. Martin
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of California Santa Barbara , Santa Barbara, CA 93109, USA
- Henry Joy McCracken
- ORCiD
- Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS and Sorbonne Université , 98 bis boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France
- Jed McKinney
- ORCiD
- The University of Texas at Austin , 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; [email protected]
- Bahram Mobasher
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Riverside , 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
- Jason Rhodes
- ORCiD
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91001, USA
- R. Michael Rich
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles , PAB 430 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
- David B. Sanders
- ORCiD
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai’i at Manoa , 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
- John D. Silverman
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo , Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan; Department of Astronomy, School of Science, The University of Tokyo , 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
- Sune Toft
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark
- Aswin P. Vijayan
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark; DTU-Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark , Elektrovej 327, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
- John R. Weaver
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, 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
- Lilan Yang
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo , Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan
- Jorge A. Zavala
- ORCiD
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan , 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad2075
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 965,
no. 1
p. 98
Abstract
We report the discovery of 15 exceptionally luminous 10 ≲ z ≲ 14 candidate galaxies discovered in the first 0.28 deg ^2 of JWST/NIRCam imaging from the COSMOS-Web survey. These sources span rest-frame UV magnitudes of −20.5 > M _UV > −22, and thus constitute the most intrinsically luminous z ≳ 10 candidates identified by JWST to date. Selected via NIRCam imaging, deep ground-based observations corroborate their detection and help significantly constrain their photometric redshifts. We analyze their spectral energy distributions using multiple open-source codes and evaluate the probability of low-redshift solutions; we conclude that 12/15 (80%) are likely genuine z ≳ 10 sources and 3/15 (20%) likely low-redshift contaminants. Three of our z ∼ 12 candidates push the limits of early stellar mass assembly: they have estimated stellar masses ∼ 5 × 10 ^9 M _⊙ , implying an effective stellar baryon fraction of ϵ _⋆ ∼ 0.2−0.5, where ϵ _⋆ ≡ M _⋆ /( f _b M _halo ). The assembly of such stellar reservoirs is made possible due to rapid, burst-driven star formation on timescales < 100 Myr where the star formation rate may far outpace the growth of the underlying dark matter halos. This is supported by the similar volume densities inferred for M _⋆ ∼ 10 ^10 M _⊙ galaxies relative to M _⋆ ∼ 10 ^9 M _⊙ —both about 10 ^−6 Mpc ^−3 —implying they live in halos of comparable mass. At such high redshifts, the duty cycle for starbursts would be of order unity, which could cause the observed change in the shape of the UV luminosity function from a double power law to a Schechter function at z ≈ 8. Spectroscopic redshift confirmation and ensuing constraints of their masses will be critical to understand how, and if, such early massive galaxies push the limits of galaxy formation in the Lambda cold dark matter paradigm.
Keywords