Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XVII. Building the First Galaxies-Chapter 1. Star Formation Histories for 5 < z < 7 Galaxies

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Documents

  • Alan Dressler
  • Benedetta Vulcani
  • Tommaso Treu
  • Marcia Rieke
  • Chris Burns
  • Antonello Calabro
  • Andrea Bonchi
  • Marco Castellano
  • Adriano Fontana
  • Nicha Leethochawalit
  • Emiliano Merlin
  • Takahiro Morishita
  • Diego Paris
  • Marusa Bradac
  • Amata Mercurio
  • Themiya Nanayakkara
  • Bianca M. Poggianti
  • Paola Santini
  • Xin Wang
  • Karl Misselt
  • Daniel P. Stark
  • Christopher Willmer

The JWST observations of high-redshift galaxies are used to measure their star formation histories-the buildup of stellar mass in the earliest galaxies. Here we use a novel analysis program, SEDz*, to compare near-IR spectral energy distributions for galaxies with redshifts 5 < z < 7 to combinations of stellar population templates evolved from z = 12. We exploit NIRCam imaging in seven wide bands covering 1-5 mu m taken in the context of the GLASS-JWST-ERS program and use SEDz* to solve for well-constrained star formation histories for 24 exemplary galaxies. In this first look, we find a variety of histories, from long, continuous star formation over 5 < z < 12 to short but intense starbursts, sometimes repeating, and, most commonly, contiguous mass buildup lasting similar to 0.5 Myr, possibly the seeds of today's typical M* galaxies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number27
JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
Volume947
Issue number2
Number of pages15
ISSN2041-8205
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2023

    Research areas

  • STELLAR POPULATIONS, REIONIZATION, SPECTROSCOPY, EVOLUTION, CLUSTERS, III., MASS, AGE

ID: 355088823