FRESCO: The Paschen-α Star-forming Sequence at Cosmic Noon

Chloe Neufeld; Pieter Van dokkum; Yasmeen Asali; Alba Covelo-Paz; Joel Leja; Jamie Lin; Jorryt Matthee; Pascal a. Oesch; Naveen a. Reddy; Irene Shivaei; Katherine e. Whitaker; Stijn Wuyts; Gabriel Brammer; Danilo Marchesini; Michael v. Maseda; Rohan p. Naidu; Erica j. Nelson; Anna Velichko; Andrea Weibel; Mengyuan Xiao

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158

FRESCO: The Paschen-α Star-forming Sequence at Cosmic Noon

Chloe Neufeld, Pieter Van dokkum, Yasmeen Asali, Alba Covelo-Paz, Joel Leja, Jamie Lin, Jorryt Matthee, Pascal a. Oesch, Naveen a. Reddy, Irene Shivaei, Katherine e. Whitaker, Stijn Wuyts, Gabriel Brammer, Danilo Marchesini, Michael v. Maseda, Rohan p. Naidu, Erica j. Nelson, Anna Velichko, Andrea Weibel, Mengyuan Xiao

Department of Physics

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

Abstract

We present results from the JWST First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopically Complete Observations survey on the star-forming sequence (SFS) of galaxies at 1.0 < z < 1.7, around the peak of the cosmic star formation history. Star formation rates (SFRs) are measured from the redshifted, relatively dust-insensitive Paschen-α emission line, and stellar mass measurements include the F444W (4.4 μm; rest-frame H) band. We find SFRs of galaxies with log(M*/M⊙) > 9.5 that are lower than found in many earlier studies by up to 0.6 dex, but in good agreement with recent results obtained with the Prospector fitting framework. The difference (log(SFR(Paα)-SFR(Prospector)) is −0.09 ± 0.04 dex at 1010−11M⊙. We also measure the empirical relation between Paschen-α luminosity and rest-frame H-band magnitude and find that the scatter is only 0.04 dex lower than that of the SFR–M* relation and is much lower than the systematic differences among relations in the literature due to various methods of converting observed measurements to physical properties. We additionally identify examples of sources—that, with standard cutoffs via the UVJ diagram, would be deemed quiescent—with significant (log(sSFR)> −11 yr−1), typically extended, Paschen-α emission. Our results may be indicative of the potential unification of methods used to derive the SFS with careful selection of star-forming galaxies and independent SFR and stellar mass indicators.

Original language	English
Article number	156
Journal	The Astrophysical Journal
Volume	972
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158
Publication status	Published - 4 Sept 2024

Data Availability Statement

The JWST data presented in this article were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute. The specific observations analyzed can be accessed on the MAST website

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous referee whose comments and suggestions improved the quality of this work.

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 program No. 1895.

Cloud-based data processing and file storage for this work is provided by the AWS Cloud Credits for Research program.

This paper made use of several publicly available software packages. We thank the respective authors for sharing their work: IPython (Pérez & Granger 2007), matplotlib (Hunter 2007), seaborn (Waskom et al. 2018), NumPy (Harris et al. 2020), SciPy (Virtanen et al. 2020), jupyter (Kluyver et al. 2016), Astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013, 2018, 2022), grizli (Brammer 2018; Brammer et al. 2022), Prospector (Leja et al. 2019, 2017; Johnson et al. 2021), FSPS (Conroy et al. 2009a, 2010; Conroy & Gunn 2010a, 2010b; Foreman-Mackey et al. 2014), dynesty (Speagle 2020), EAZY (Brammer et al. 2008), Bagpipes (Carnall et al. 2018), and SExtractor (Bertin & Arnouts 1996).

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10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158Licence: CC BY

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158Licence: CC BY

FRESCO: the First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopic Complete Survey
Wuyts, S. (CoI)
30/03/21 → 31/12/24
Project: Research-related funding

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Neufeld, C., Van dokkum, P., Asali, Y., Covelo-Paz, A., Leja, J., Lin, J., Matthee, J., Oesch, P. A., Reddy, N. A., Shivaei, I., Whitaker, K. E., Wuyts, S., Brammer, G., Marchesini, D., Maseda, M. V., Naidu, R. P., Nelson, E. J., Velichko, A., Weibel, A., & Xiao, M. (2024). FRESCO: The Paschen-α Star-forming Sequence at Cosmic Noon. The Astrophysical Journal, 972(2), Article 156. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158

Neufeld, C, Van dokkum, P, Asali, Y, Covelo-Paz, A, Leja, J, Lin, J, Matthee, J, Oesch, PA, Reddy, NA, Shivaei, I, Whitaker, KE, Wuyts, S, Brammer, G, Marchesini, D, Maseda, MV, Naidu, RP, Nelson, EJ, Velichko, A, Weibel, A & Xiao, M 2024, 'FRESCO: The Paschen-α Star-forming Sequence at Cosmic Noon', The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 972, no. 2, 156. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158

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title = "FRESCO: The Paschen-α Star-forming Sequence at Cosmic Noon",

abstract = "We present results from the JWST First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopically Complete Observations survey on the star-forming sequence (SFS) of galaxies at 1.0 < z < 1.7, around the peak of the cosmic star formation history. Star formation rates (SFRs) are measured from the redshifted, relatively dust-insensitive Paschen-α emission line, and stellar mass measurements include the F444W (4.4 μm; rest-frame H) band. We find SFRs of galaxies with log(M*/M⊙) > 9.5 that are lower than found in many earlier studies by up to 0.6 dex, but in good agreement with recent results obtained with the Prospector fitting framework. The difference (log(SFR(Paα)-SFR(Prospector)) is −0.09 ± 0.04 dex at 1010−11M⊙. We also measure the empirical relation between Paschen-α luminosity and rest-frame H-band magnitude and find that the scatter is only 0.04 dex lower than that of the SFR–M* relation and is much lower than the systematic differences among relations in the literature due to various methods of converting observed measurements to physical properties. We additionally identify examples of sources—that, with standard cutoffs via the UVJ diagram, would be deemed quiescent—with significant (log(sSFR)> −11 yr−1), typically extended, Paschen-α emission. Our results may be indicative of the potential unification of methods used to derive the SFS with careful selection of star-forming galaxies and independent SFR and stellar mass indicators.",

author = "Chloe Neufeld and {Van dokkum}, Pieter and Yasmeen Asali and Alba Covelo-Paz and Joel Leja and Jamie Lin and Jorryt Matthee and Oesch, {Pascal a.} and Reddy, {Naveen a.} and Irene Shivaei and Whitaker, {Katherine e.} and Stijn Wuyts and Gabriel Brammer and Danilo Marchesini and Maseda, {Michael v.} and Naidu, {Rohan p.} and Nelson, {Erica j.} and Anna Velichko and Andrea Weibel and Mengyuan Xiao",

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AU - Neufeld, Chloe

AU - Van dokkum, Pieter

AU - Asali, Yasmeen

AU - Covelo-Paz, Alba

AU - Leja, Joel

AU - Lin, Jamie

AU - Matthee, Jorryt

AU - Oesch, Pascal a.

AU - Reddy, Naveen a.

AU - Shivaei, Irene

AU - Whitaker, Katherine e.

AU - Wuyts, Stijn

AU - Brammer, Gabriel

AU - Marchesini, Danilo

AU - Maseda, Michael v.

AU - Naidu, Rohan p.

AU - Nelson, Erica j.

AU - Velichko, Anna

AU - Weibel, Andrea

AU - Xiao, Mengyuan

PY - 2024/9/4

Y1 - 2024/9/4

N2 - We present results from the JWST First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopically Complete Observations survey on the star-forming sequence (SFS) of galaxies at 1.0 < z < 1.7, around the peak of the cosmic star formation history. Star formation rates (SFRs) are measured from the redshifted, relatively dust-insensitive Paschen-α emission line, and stellar mass measurements include the F444W (4.4 μm; rest-frame H) band. We find SFRs of galaxies with log(M*/M⊙) > 9.5 that are lower than found in many earlier studies by up to 0.6 dex, but in good agreement with recent results obtained with the Prospector fitting framework. The difference (log(SFR(Paα)-SFR(Prospector)) is −0.09 ± 0.04 dex at 1010−11M⊙. We also measure the empirical relation between Paschen-α luminosity and rest-frame H-band magnitude and find that the scatter is only 0.04 dex lower than that of the SFR–M* relation and is much lower than the systematic differences among relations in the literature due to various methods of converting observed measurements to physical properties. We additionally identify examples of sources—that, with standard cutoffs via the UVJ diagram, would be deemed quiescent—with significant (log(sSFR)> −11 yr−1), typically extended, Paschen-α emission. Our results may be indicative of the potential unification of methods used to derive the SFS with careful selection of star-forming galaxies and independent SFR and stellar mass indicators.

AB - We present results from the JWST First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopically Complete Observations survey on the star-forming sequence (SFS) of galaxies at 1.0 < z < 1.7, around the peak of the cosmic star formation history. Star formation rates (SFRs) are measured from the redshifted, relatively dust-insensitive Paschen-α emission line, and stellar mass measurements include the F444W (4.4 μm; rest-frame H) band. We find SFRs of galaxies with log(M*/M⊙) > 9.5 that are lower than found in many earlier studies by up to 0.6 dex, but in good agreement with recent results obtained with the Prospector fitting framework. The difference (log(SFR(Paα)-SFR(Prospector)) is −0.09 ± 0.04 dex at 1010−11M⊙. We also measure the empirical relation between Paschen-α luminosity and rest-frame H-band magnitude and find that the scatter is only 0.04 dex lower than that of the SFR–M* relation and is much lower than the systematic differences among relations in the literature due to various methods of converting observed measurements to physical properties. We additionally identify examples of sources—that, with standard cutoffs via the UVJ diagram, would be deemed quiescent—with significant (log(sSFR)> −11 yr−1), typically extended, Paschen-α emission. Our results may be indicative of the potential unification of methods used to derive the SFS with careful selection of star-forming galaxies and independent SFR and stellar mass indicators.

U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158

DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/ad6158

M3 - Article

SN - 0004-637X

VL - 972

JO - The Astrophysical Journal

JF - The Astrophysical Journal

IS - 2

M1 - 156

ER -

FRESCO: The Paschen-α Star-forming Sequence at Cosmic Noon

Abstract

Data Availability Statement

Acknowledgements

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Projects

FRESCO: the First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopic Complete Survey

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