Accelerated formation of ultra-massive galaxies in the first billion years

Mengyuan Xiao; Pascal A. Oesch; David Elbaz; Longji Bing; Erica J. Nelson; Andrea Weibel; Garth D. Illingworth; Pieter van Dokkum; Rohan P. Naidu; Emanuele Daddi; Rychard J. Bouwens; Jorryt Matthee; Stijn Wuyts; John Chisholm; Gabriel Brammer; Mark Dickinson; Benjamin Magnelli; Lucas Leroy; Daniel Schaerer; Thomas Herard-Demanche; Seunghwan Lim; Laia Barrufet; Ryan Endsley; Yoshinobu Fudamoto; Carlos Gómez-Guijarro; Rashmi Gottumukkala; Ivo Labbé; Dan Magee; Danilo Marchesini; Michael Maseda; Yuxiang Qin; Naveen A. Reddy; Alice Shapley; Irene Shivaei; Marko Shuntov; Mauro Stefanon; Katherine E. Whitaker; J. Stuart B. Wyithe

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08094-5

Accelerated formation of ultra-massive galaxies in the first billion years

Mengyuan Xiao, Pascal A. Oesch, David Elbaz, Longji Bing, Erica J. Nelson, Andrea Weibel, Garth D. Illingworth, Pieter van Dokkum, Rohan P. Naidu, Emanuele Daddi, Rychard J. Bouwens, Jorryt Matthee, Stijn Wuyts, John Chisholm, Gabriel Brammer, Mark Dickinson, Benjamin Magnelli, Lucas Leroy, Daniel Schaerer, Thomas Herard-DemancheSeunghwan Lim, Laia Barrufet, Ryan Endsley, Yoshinobu Fudamoto, Carlos Gómez-Guijarro, Rashmi Gottumukkala, Ivo Labbé, Dan Magee, Danilo Marchesini, Michael Maseda, Yuxiang Qin, Naveen A. Reddy, Alice Shapley, Irene Shivaei, Marko Shuntov, Mauro Stefanon, Katherine E. Whitaker, J. Stuart B. Wyithe

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

3 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Recent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations have revealed an unexpected abundance of massive-galaxy candidates in the early Universe, extending further in redshift and to lower luminosity than what had previously been found by submillimetre surveys^1–6. These JWST candidates have been interpreted as challenging the Λ cold dark-matter cosmology (where Λ is the cosmological constant)^7–9, but, so far, these studies have mostly relied on only rest-frame ultraviolet data and have lacked spectroscopic confirmation of their redshifts^10–16. Here we report a systematic study of 36 massive dust-obscured galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts between 5 and 9 from the JWST FRESCO survey. We find no tension with the Λ cold dark-matter model in our sample. However, three ultra-massive galaxies (logM_★/M_⊙ ≳ 11.0, where M_★ is the stellar mass and M_⊙ is the mass of the Sun) require an exceptional fraction of 50 per cent of baryons converted into stars—two to three times higher than the most efficient galaxies at later epochs. The contribution from an active galactic nucleus is unlikely because of their extended emission. Ultra-massive galaxies account for as much as 17 per cent of the total cosmic star-formation-rate density¹⁷ at redshifts between about five and six.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	311-315
Number of pages	5
Journal	Nature
Volume	635
Issue number	8038
Early online date	13 Nov 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08094-5
Publication status	Published - 14 Nov 2024

Data Availability Statement

All the raw data are publicly available through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST; https://archive.stsci.edu/), under programme ID 1895. The FRESCO data are being released on MAST as a High-Level Science Product via https://doi.org/10.17909/gdyc-7g80. Images are already available. The spectra are being calibrated and will be discussed in an upcoming data paper (G.B. et al., manuscript in preparation). For updates, please check the survey webpage at https://jwst-fresco.astro.unige.ch/ or the MAST page at https://archive.stsci.edu/hlsp/fresco/. The advanced datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Acknowledgements

We thank R. Marques-Chaves for discussions. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with programme number 1895. Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant JWST-GO-01895 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

Funding

This work has received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number MB22.00072, as well as from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) through project grant 200020_207349. The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant DNRF140. R.P.N. acknowledges funding from JWST programmes GO-1933 and GO-2279. Support for this work was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51515.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Y.F. acknowledges support from NAOJ ALMA Scientific Research Grant number 2020-16B. Y.Q. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. I.L. acknowledges support by the Australian Research Council through Future Fellowship FT220100798. M. Stefanon acknowledges support from the CIDEGENT/2021/059 grant, from project PID2019-109592GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación - Agencia Estatal de Investigación. M. Stefanon also acknowledges the financial support from the MCIN with funding from the European Union NextGenerationEU and Generalitat Valenciana in the call Programa de Planes Complementarios de I+D+i (PRTR 2022) Project (VAL-JPAS), reference ASFAE/2022/025. Cloud-based data processing and file storage for this work is provided by the AWS Cloud Credits for Research programme. This work used the DiRAC@Durham facility managed by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility (www.dirac.ac.uk). The equipment was funded by BEIS capital funding via STFC capital grants ST/K00042X/1, ST/P002293/1, ST/R002371/1 and ST/S002502/1, Durham University and STFC operations grant ST/R000832/1. DiRAC is part of the National e-Infrastructure.

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Cite this

Xiao, M., Oesch, P. A., Elbaz, D., Bing, L., Nelson, E. J., Weibel, A., Illingworth, G. D., van Dokkum, P., Naidu, R. P., Daddi, E., Bouwens, R. J., Matthee, J., Wuyts, S., Chisholm, J., Brammer, G., Dickinson, M., Magnelli, B., Leroy, L., Schaerer, D., ... Wyithe, J. S. B. (2024). Accelerated formation of ultra-massive galaxies in the first billion years. Nature, 635(8038), 311-315. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08094-5

Xiao, M, Oesch, PA, Elbaz, D, Bing, L, Nelson, EJ, Weibel, A, Illingworth, GD, van Dokkum, P, Naidu, RP, Daddi, E, Bouwens, RJ, Matthee, J, Wuyts, S, Chisholm, J, Brammer, G, Dickinson, M, Magnelli, B, Leroy, L, Schaerer, D, Herard-Demanche, T, Lim, S, Barrufet, L, Endsley, R, Fudamoto, Y, Gómez-Guijarro, C, Gottumukkala, R, Labbé, I, Magee, D, Marchesini, D, Maseda, M, Qin, Y, Reddy, NA, Shapley, A, Shivaei, I, Shuntov, M, Stefanon, M, Whitaker, KE & Wyithe, JSB 2024, 'Accelerated formation of ultra-massive galaxies in the first billion years', Nature, vol. 635, no. 8038, pp. 311-315. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08094-5

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title = "Accelerated formation of ultra-massive galaxies in the first billion years",

abstract = "Recent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations have revealed an unexpected abundance of massive-galaxy candidates in the early Universe, extending further in redshift and to lower luminosity than what had previously been found by submillimetre surveys1–6. These JWST candidates have been interpreted as challenging the Λ cold dark-matter cosmology (where Λ is the cosmological constant)7–9, but, so far, these studies have mostly relied on only rest-frame ultraviolet data and have lacked spectroscopic confirmation of their redshifts10–16. Here we report a systematic study of 36 massive dust-obscured galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts between 5 and 9 from the JWST FRESCO survey. We find no tension with the Λ cold dark-matter model in our sample. However, three ultra-massive galaxies (logM★/M⊙ ≳ 11.0, where M★ is the stellar mass and M⊙ is the mass of the Sun) require an exceptional fraction of 50 per cent of baryons converted into stars—two to three times higher than the most efficient galaxies at later epochs. The contribution from an active galactic nucleus is unlikely because of their extended emission. Ultra-massive galaxies account for as much as 17 per cent of the total cosmic star-formation-rate density17 at redshifts between about five and six.",

author = "Mengyuan Xiao and Oesch, {Pascal A.} and David Elbaz and Longji Bing and Nelson, {Erica J.} and Andrea Weibel and Illingworth, {Garth D.} and {van Dokkum}, Pieter and Naidu, {Rohan P.} and Emanuele Daddi and Bouwens, {Rychard J.} and Jorryt Matthee and Stijn Wuyts and John Chisholm and Gabriel Brammer and Mark Dickinson and Benjamin Magnelli and Lucas Leroy and Daniel Schaerer and Thomas Herard-Demanche and Seunghwan Lim and Laia Barrufet and Ryan Endsley and Yoshinobu Fudamoto and Carlos G{\'o}mez-Guijarro and Rashmi Gottumukkala and Ivo Labb{\'e} and Dan Magee and Danilo Marchesini and Michael Maseda and Yuxiang Qin and Reddy, {Naveen A.} and Alice Shapley and Irene Shivaei and Marko Shuntov and Mauro Stefanon and Whitaker, {Katherine E.} and Wyithe, {J. Stuart B.}",

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AU - Xiao, Mengyuan

AU - Oesch, Pascal A.

AU - Elbaz, David

AU - Bing, Longji

AU - Nelson, Erica J.

AU - Weibel, Andrea

AU - Illingworth, Garth D.

AU - van Dokkum, Pieter

AU - Naidu, Rohan P.

AU - Daddi, Emanuele

AU - Bouwens, Rychard J.

AU - Matthee, Jorryt

AU - Wuyts, Stijn

AU - Chisholm, John

AU - Brammer, Gabriel

AU - Dickinson, Mark

AU - Magnelli, Benjamin

AU - Leroy, Lucas

AU - Schaerer, Daniel

AU - Herard-Demanche, Thomas

AU - Lim, Seunghwan

AU - Barrufet, Laia

AU - Endsley, Ryan

AU - Fudamoto, Yoshinobu

AU - Gómez-Guijarro, Carlos

AU - Gottumukkala, Rashmi

AU - Labbé, Ivo

AU - Magee, Dan

AU - Marchesini, Danilo

AU - Maseda, Michael

AU - Qin, Yuxiang

AU - Reddy, Naveen A.

AU - Shapley, Alice

AU - Shivaei, Irene

AU - Shuntov, Marko

AU - Stefanon, Mauro

AU - Whitaker, Katherine E.

AU - Wyithe, J. Stuart B.

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N2 - Recent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations have revealed an unexpected abundance of massive-galaxy candidates in the early Universe, extending further in redshift and to lower luminosity than what had previously been found by submillimetre surveys1–6. These JWST candidates have been interpreted as challenging the Λ cold dark-matter cosmology (where Λ is the cosmological constant)7–9, but, so far, these studies have mostly relied on only rest-frame ultraviolet data and have lacked spectroscopic confirmation of their redshifts10–16. Here we report a systematic study of 36 massive dust-obscured galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts between 5 and 9 from the JWST FRESCO survey. We find no tension with the Λ cold dark-matter model in our sample. However, three ultra-massive galaxies (logM★/M⊙ ≳ 11.0, where M★ is the stellar mass and M⊙ is the mass of the Sun) require an exceptional fraction of 50 per cent of baryons converted into stars—two to three times higher than the most efficient galaxies at later epochs. The contribution from an active galactic nucleus is unlikely because of their extended emission. Ultra-massive galaxies account for as much as 17 per cent of the total cosmic star-formation-rate density17 at redshifts between about five and six.

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Accelerated formation of ultra-massive galaxies in the first billion years

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