JWST's PEARLS: Bright 1.5–2.0 μm Dropouts in the Spitzer/IRAC Dark Field

Yan, Haojing; Cohen, Seth H.; Windhorst, Rogier A.; Jansen, Rolf A.; Ma, Zhiyuan; Beacom, J. F.; Cheng, Cheng; Huang, Jiasheng; Grogin, Norman A.; Willner, S. P.; Yun, Min S.; Hammel, Heidi B.; Milam, Stefanie N.; Conselice, Christopher J.; Driver, Simon P.; Frye, Brenda; Marshall, Madeline A.; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Willmer, Christopher N. A.; Robotham, Aaron S. G.; D’Silva, Jordan C. J.; Summers, James Bradley; Ling, Chenxiaoji; Lim, Jeremy; Harrington, Kevin; Ferreira, Leonardo; Diego, J. M.; Pirzkal, Nor; Wilkins, Stephen M.; Wang, Lifan; Hathi, Nimish P.; Zitrin, A.; Bhatawdekar, Rachana; Adams, Nathan; Furtak, Lukas J.; Maksym, W. Peter; Rutkowski, Michael J.; Fazio, G. G.

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aca974

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Previous Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground-based surveys enabled a census of galaxies at redshift z ≈ 6-8, about 1 Gyr after the Big Bang (e.g., Finkelstein et al 2015;Castellano et al 2016a;Bouwens et al 2021), and the first investigations of galaxies at z ≈ 9-11 (Ellis et al 2013;Bouwens et al 2016;McLeod et al 2016;Ishigaki et al 2018;Oesch et al 2018;Morishita et al 2018;Stefanon et al 2019;Bowler et al 2020;Roberts-Borsani et al 2022a;Leethochawalit et al 2022;Bagley et al 2022). The public data sets gathered through the JWST Early Release Observations (Pontoppidan et al 2022) and Early Release Science Programs have enabled the detection of tens of candidate sources at z > 9, pushing the cosmic frontier beyond the limits of HST-WFC3 to the first 200-300 Myr after the Big Bang (e.g., Castellano et al 2022a;Donnan et al 2023;Finkelstein et al 2022a;Morishita & Stiavelli 2023;Naidu et al 2022a;Yan et al 2023;Roberts-Borsani et al 2022b;Robertson et al 2023;Bunker et al 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XIX. A High Density of Bright Galaxies at z ≈ 10 in the A2744 Region

Castellano

Fontana

Treu

et al. 2023

ApJL

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We report the detection of a high density of redshift z ≈ 10 galaxies behind the foreground cluster A2744, selected from imaging data obtained recently with NIRCam on board JWST by three programs—GLASS-JWST, UNCOVER, and DDT#2756. To ensure robust estimates of the lensing magnification μ, we use an improved version of our model that exploits the first epoch of NIRCam images and newly obtained MUSE spectra and avoids regions with μ > 5 where the uncertainty may be higher. We detect seven bright z ≈ 10 galaxies with demagnified rest frame −22 ≲ M UV ≲ −19 mag, over an area of ∼37 arcmin2. Taking into account photometric incompleteness and the effects of lensing on luminosity and cosmological volume, we find that the density of z ≈ 10 galaxies in the field is about 10× (3×) larger than the average at M UV ≈ −21 ( −20) mag reported so far. The density is even higher when considering only the GLASS-JWST data, which are the deepest and the least affected by magnification and incompleteness. The GLASS-JWST field contains five out of seven galaxies, distributed along an apparent filamentary structure of 2 Mpc in projected length, and includes a close pair of candidates with M UV < −20 mag having a projected separation of only 16 kpc. These findings suggest the presence of a z ≈ 10 overdensity in the field. In addition to providing excellent targets for efficient spectroscopic follow-up observations, our study confirms the high density of bright galaxies observed in early JWST observations but calls for multiple surveys along independent lines of sight to achieve an unbiased estimate of their average density and a first estimate of their clustering.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XIX. A High Density of Bright Galaxies at z ≈ 10 in the A2744 Region

Castellano

Fontana

Treu

et al. 2023

ApJL

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“…In particular, many works exploited the power of NIRCam to gather the first sizeable sample of candidates at z 10 (e.g., Bouwens et al 2023;Castellano et al 2022;Finkelstein et al 2022;Morishita & Stiavelli 2023;Naidu et al 2022;Roberts-Borsani et al 2023;Robertson et al 2023;Yan et al 2023;Castellano et al 2023;Donnan et al 2023), demonstrating the power of JWST in exploring the universe during the reionization epoch.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science Program. II. Stage I Release of NIRCam Imaging and Catalogs in the Abell 2744 Region

Paris

Merlin

Fontana

et al. 2023

ApJ

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We present images and a multiwavelength photometric catalog based on all of the JWST NIRCam observations obtained to date in the region of the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster. These data come from three different programs, namely, the GLASS-JWST Early Release Science Program, UNCOVER, and the Director’s Discretionary Time program 2756. The observed area in the NIRCam wide-band filters—covering the central and extended regions of the cluster, as well as new parallel fields—is 46.5 arcmin2 in total. All images in eight bands (F090W, F115W, F150W, F200W, F277W, F356W, F410M, and F444W) have been reduced adopting the latest calibration and reference files available. Data reduction has been performed using an augmented version of the official JWST pipeline, with improvements aimed at removing or mitigating defects in the raw images and improving the background subtraction and photometric accuracy. We obtain an F444W-detected multiband catalog, including all NIRCam and available Hubble Space Telescope data, adopting forced-aperture photometry on point-spread-function-matched images. The catalog is intended to enable early scientific investigations and is optimized for the study of faint galaxies; it contains 24,389 sources, with a 5σ limiting magnitude in the F444W band ranging from 28.5 AB to 30.5 AB, as a result of the varying exposure times of the surveys that observed the field. We publicly release the reduced NIRCam images, associated multiwavelength catalog, and the code adopted for 1/f noise removal with the aim of aiding users in familiarizing themselves with JWST NIRCam data and identifying suitable targets for follow-up observations.

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“…The large number of candidates (over a hundred as of this writing) resulted from these studies are incompatible with the previously favored predictions at z > 11 (see, e.g., Behroozi et al 2020;Vogelsberger et al 2020). The problem is exacerbated by the fact that some of these candidates are much brighter (m  26.5 mag) than what would be expected for galaxies at such high redshifts (see, e.g., Yan et al 2023a for a summary). If a significant fraction of these objects are indeed at z > 11, we will have severe difficulty in reconciling them with our current picture of galaxy formation in the early universe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Taking the χ 2 at face value, the SNe templates provide better fits to these objects than in Y23. Such point-source dropouts are present in the 1.5-2.0 μm dropout sample of Yan et al (2023a) as well, and likely also elsewhere. To effectively remove such contaminants, multiple-epoch imaging is probably the most efficient.…”

Section: Supernovae As Possible Contaminants In the Z > 11mentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Since its Early Release Observations (ERO), James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has created a flux of new searches for high-redshift (z > 11) candidate galaxies (Bouwens et al 2022;Castellano et al 2022;Finkelstein et al 2022;Harikane et al 2022;Naidu et al 2022;Adams et al 2023;Atek et al 2023;Donnan et al 2023;Rodighiero et al 2023;Yan et al 2023bYan et al , 2023a. The large number of candidates (over a hundred as of this writing) resulted from these studies are incompatible with the previously favored predictions at z > 11 (see, e.g., Behroozi et al 2020;Vogelsberger et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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Pointlike Sources among z > 11 Galaxy Candidates: Contaminants due to Supernovae at High Redshifts?

Yan

Wang

et al. 2023

ApJL

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The recent searches for z > 11 galaxies using the James Webb Space Telescope have resulted in an unexpectedly high number of candidate objects, which imply at least 1 order of magnitude higher number density of z > 11 galaxies than the previously favored predictions. A question has risen whether there are some new types of contaminants among these candidates. The candidate sample of Yan et al., totaling 87 dropouts, is the largest one, and we notice that a number of these candidates are pointlike. We hypothesize that the point-source dropouts could be supernovae at high redshifts. Further investigation shows that most of their spectral energy distributions indeed can be explained by supernovae at various redshifts from z ∼ 1 to 15, which lends support to this hypothesis. Attributing such point-source dropouts to supernova contamination cannot eliminate the tension, however, because they only account for ∼10% of the Yan et al. sample. On the other hand, the discovery of “contaminant” supernovae at z > 3 will have a series of important implications. Ironically, the existence of supernovae at z > 10 would still imply that the previously favored picture of early galaxy formation severely underestimates the global star formation rate density such redshifts. Multiple-epoch JWST imaging will be the simplest and yet the most efficient way to further test this hypothesis.

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JWST's PEARLS: Bright 1.5–2.0 μm Dropouts in the Spitzer/IRAC Dark Field

Cited by 15 publications

References 33 publications

Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XIX. A High Density of Bright Galaxies at z ≈ 10 in the A2744 Region

Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XIX. A High Density of Bright Galaxies at z ≈ 10 in the A2744 Region

The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science Program. II. Stage I Release of NIRCam Imaging and Catalogs in the Abell 2744 Region

Pointlike Sources among z > 11 Galaxy Candidates: Contaminants due to Supernovae at High Redshifts?

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