A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658

Adam C. Carnall; Ross J. McLure; James S. Dunlop; Derek J. McLeod; Vivienne Wild; Fergus Cullen; Dan Magee; Ryan Begley; Andrea Cimatti; Callum T. Donnan; Massissilia L. Hamadouche; Sophie M. Jewell; Sam Walker

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06158-6

A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658

Adam C. Carnall^*, Ross J. McLure, James S. Dunlop, Derek J. McLeod, Vivienne Wild, Fergus Cullen, Dan Magee, Ryan Begley, Andrea Cimatti, Callum T. Donnan, Massissilia L. Hamadouche, Sophie M. Jewell, Sam Walker

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Physics and Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The extremely rapid assembly of the earliest galaxies during the first billion years of cosmic history is a major challenge for our understanding of galaxy formation physics ^{(1; 2; 3; 4; 5)}. The advent of JWST has exacerbated this issue by confirming the existence of galaxies in significant numbers as early as the first few hundred million years ^{(6; 7; 8)}. Perhaps even more surprisingly, in some galaxies, this initial highly efficient star formation rapidly shuts down, or quenches, giving rise to massive quiescent galaxies as little as 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang ^{(9; 10)}, however, due to their faintness and red colour, it has proven extremely challenging to learn about these extreme quiescent galaxies, or to confirm whether any exist at earlier times. Here we report the spectroscopic confirmation of a massive quiescent galaxy, GS-9209, at redshift, z = 4.658, just 1.25 billion years after the Big Bang, using JWST NIRSpec. From these data we infer a stellar mass of M∗ = 3.8 ± 0.2 × 10¹⁰M⊙, which formed over a ≃ 200 Myr period before this galaxy quenched its star formation activity at z=6.5^+0.2_−0.5, when the Universe was ≃ 800 million years old. This galaxy is both a likely descendent of the highest-redshift submillimetre galaxies and quasars, and a likely progenitor for the dense, ancient cores of the most massive local galaxies.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	716–719
Number of pages	4
Journal	Nature
Volume	619
Issue number	7971
Early online date	22 May 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06158-6
Publication status	Published - 27 Jul 2023

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Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 6.48 MBLicence: CC BY

https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.11413Licence: CC BY

AO6 - Dr Vivienne Wild: Project AO6 - Vivienne Wild
Wild, V. (PI)
Science & Technology Facilities Council
1/04/21 → 31/03/24
Project: Standard

Cite this

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title = "A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658",

abstract = "The extremely rapid assembly of the earliest galaxies during the first billion years of cosmic history is a major challenge for our understanding of galaxy formation physics (1; 2; 3; 4; 5). The advent of JWST has exacerbated this issue by confirming the existence of galaxies in significant numbers as early as the first few hundred million years (6; 7; 8). Perhaps even more surprisingly, in some galaxies, this initial highly efficient star formation rapidly shuts down, or quenches, giving rise to massive quiescent galaxies as little as 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang (9; 10), however, due to their faintness and red colour, it has proven extremely challenging to learn about these extreme quiescent galaxies, or to confirm whether any exist at earlier times. Here we report the spectroscopic confirmation of a massive quiescent galaxy, GS-9209, at redshift, z = 4.658, just 1.25 billion years after the Big Bang, using JWST NIRSpec. From these data we infer a stellar mass of M∗ = 3.8 ± 0.2 × 1010 M⊙, which formed over a ≃ 200 Myr period before this galaxy quenched its star formation activity at z=6.5+0.2−0.5, when the Universe was ≃ 800 million years old. This galaxy is both a likely descendent of the highest-redshift submillimetre galaxies and quasars, and a likely progenitor for the dense, ancient cores of the most massive local galaxies.",

author = "Carnall, {Adam C.} and McLure, {Ross J.} and Dunlop, {James S.} and McLeod, {Derek J.} and Vivienne Wild and Fergus Cullen and Dan Magee and Ryan Begley and Andrea Cimatti and Donnan, {Callum T.} and Hamadouche, {Massissilia L.} and Jewell, {Sophie M.} and Sam Walker",

note = "Funding: A. C. Carnall thanks the Leverhulme Trust for their support via a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. R. J. McLure, J. S. Dunlop, D. J. McLeod, V. Wild, R. Begley, C. T. Donnan and M. L. Hamadouche acknowledge the support of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. F. Cullen acknowledges support from a UKRI Frontier Research Guarantee Grant (grant reference EP/X021025/1). A. Cimatti acknowledges support from the grant PRIN MIUR 2017 - 20173ML3WW 001.",

year = "2023",

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day = "27",

doi = "10.1038/s41586-023-06158-6",

language = "English",

volume = "619",

pages = "716–719",

journal = "Nature",

issn = "1476-4687",

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T1 - A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658

AU - Carnall, Adam C.

AU - McLure, Ross J.

AU - Dunlop, James S.

AU - McLeod, Derek J.

AU - Wild, Vivienne

AU - Cullen, Fergus

AU - Magee, Dan

AU - Begley, Ryan

AU - Cimatti, Andrea

AU - Donnan, Callum T.

AU - Hamadouche, Massissilia L.

AU - Jewell, Sophie M.

AU - Walker, Sam

N1 - Funding: A. C. Carnall thanks the Leverhulme Trust for their support via a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. R. J. McLure, J. S. Dunlop, D. J. McLeod, V. Wild, R. Begley, C. T. Donnan and M. L. Hamadouche acknowledge the support of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. F. Cullen acknowledges support from a UKRI Frontier Research Guarantee Grant (grant reference EP/X021025/1). A. Cimatti acknowledges support from the grant PRIN MIUR 2017 - 20173ML3WW 001.

PY - 2023/7/27

Y1 - 2023/7/27

N2 - The extremely rapid assembly of the earliest galaxies during the first billion years of cosmic history is a major challenge for our understanding of galaxy formation physics (1; 2; 3; 4; 5). The advent of JWST has exacerbated this issue by confirming the existence of galaxies in significant numbers as early as the first few hundred million years (6; 7; 8). Perhaps even more surprisingly, in some galaxies, this initial highly efficient star formation rapidly shuts down, or quenches, giving rise to massive quiescent galaxies as little as 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang (9; 10), however, due to their faintness and red colour, it has proven extremely challenging to learn about these extreme quiescent galaxies, or to confirm whether any exist at earlier times. Here we report the spectroscopic confirmation of a massive quiescent galaxy, GS-9209, at redshift, z = 4.658, just 1.25 billion years after the Big Bang, using JWST NIRSpec. From these data we infer a stellar mass of M∗ = 3.8 ± 0.2 × 1010 M⊙, which formed over a ≃ 200 Myr period before this galaxy quenched its star formation activity at z=6.5+0.2−0.5, when the Universe was ≃ 800 million years old. This galaxy is both a likely descendent of the highest-redshift submillimetre galaxies and quasars, and a likely progenitor for the dense, ancient cores of the most massive local galaxies.

AB - The extremely rapid assembly of the earliest galaxies during the first billion years of cosmic history is a major challenge for our understanding of galaxy formation physics (1; 2; 3; 4; 5). The advent of JWST has exacerbated this issue by confirming the existence of galaxies in significant numbers as early as the first few hundred million years (6; 7; 8). Perhaps even more surprisingly, in some galaxies, this initial highly efficient star formation rapidly shuts down, or quenches, giving rise to massive quiescent galaxies as little as 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang (9; 10), however, due to their faintness and red colour, it has proven extremely challenging to learn about these extreme quiescent galaxies, or to confirm whether any exist at earlier times. Here we report the spectroscopic confirmation of a massive quiescent galaxy, GS-9209, at redshift, z = 4.658, just 1.25 billion years after the Big Bang, using JWST NIRSpec. From these data we infer a stellar mass of M∗ = 3.8 ± 0.2 × 1010 M⊙, which formed over a ≃ 200 Myr period before this galaxy quenched its star formation activity at z=6.5+0.2−0.5, when the Universe was ≃ 800 million years old. This galaxy is both a likely descendent of the highest-redshift submillimetre galaxies and quasars, and a likely progenitor for the dense, ancient cores of the most massive local galaxies.

U2 - 10.1038/s41586-023-06158-6

DO - 10.1038/s41586-023-06158-6

M3 - Article

SN - 1476-4687

VL - 619

SP - 716

EP - 719

JO - Nature

JF - Nature

IS - 7971

ER -

A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658

Abstract

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AO6 - Dr Vivienne Wild: Project AO6 - Vivienne Wild

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