Early Results from GLASS-JWST. IX. First Spectroscopic Confirmation of Low-mass Quiescent Galaxies at z > 2 with NIRISS

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Documents

  • Danilo Marchesini
  • Takahiro Morishita
  • Pietro Bergamini
  • Xin Wang
  • Marusa Bradac
  • Guido Roberts-Borsani
  • Tommaso Treu
  • Adriano Fontana
  • Tucker Jones
  • Paola Santini
  • Benedetta Vulcani
  • Ana Acebron
  • Antonello Calabro
  • Marco Castellano
  • Karl Glazebrook
  • Claudio Grillo
  • Amata Mercurio
  • Themiya Nanayakkara
  • Piero Rosati
  • Chanita Tubthong
  • Eros Vanzella

How passive galaxies form, and the physical mechanisms which prevent star formation over long timescales, are some of the most outstanding questions in understanding galaxy evolution. The properties of quiescent galaxies over cosmic time provide crucial information to identify the quenching mechanisms. Passive galaxies have been confirmed and studied out to z similar to 4, but all of these studies have been limited to massive systems (mostly with log(M-star/M-2) > 10.8). Using JWST-NIRISS grism slitless spectroscopic data from the GLASS-JWST Early Release Science program, we present spectroscopic confirmation of two quiescent galaxies at z(spec) = 2.650(-0.006)(+0.004) and -z(spec) = 2.433(-0.016)(+0.032) (3 sigma errors) with -stellar masses of ( log M-star/M-?) = 10.59(-0.05)(+0.11) and ( log M-star/M-?) = 10.07(-0.03)(+0.06) -(corrected for magnification factors of mu = 2.0 and mu = 2.1, respectively). The latter represents the first spectroscopic confirmation of the existence of low-mass quiescent galaxies at cosmic noon, showcasing the power of JWST to identify and characterize this enigmatic population.

Original languageEnglish
Article number25
JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
Volume942
Issue number2
Number of pages7
ISSN2041-8205
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Jan 2023

    Research areas

  • VELOCITY DISPERSIONS, PASSIVE GALAXIES, STAR-FORMATION, STELLAR, REDSHIFT, ABELL-2744

ID: 342439296