JADES: Differing assembly histories of galaxies -- Observational evidence for bursty SFHs and (mini-)quenching in the first billion years of the Universe

Author:

Tobias J. Looser, Francesco D'Eugenio, Roberto Maiolino, Sandro Tacchella, Mirko Curti, Santiago Arribas, William M. Baker, Stefi Baum, Nina Bonaventura, Kristan Boyett, Andrew J. Bunker, Stefano Carniani, Stephane Charlot, Jacopo Chevallard, Emma Curtis-Lake, A. Lola Danhaive, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Anna de Graaff, Kevin Hainline, Zhiyuan Ji, Benjamin D. Johnson, Nimisha Kumari, Erica Nelson, Eleonora Parlanti, Hans-Walter Rix, Brant Robertson, Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino, Lester Sandles, Jan Scholtz, Renske Smit, Daniel P. Stark, Hannah Übler, Christina C. Williams, Chris Willott, Joris Witstok

Keyword:

Astrophysics, Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

journal:

date:

2023-06-03 16:00:00

Abstract

We use deep NIRSpec spectroscopic data from the JADES survey to derive the star formation histories (SFHs) of a sample of 200 galaxies at 0.6$<$z$<$11 and spanning stellar masses from $\rm 10^6$ to $\rm 10^{9.5}~M_\odot$. We find that galaxies at high-redshift, galaxies above the Main Sequence (MS) and low-mass galaxies tend to host younger stellar populations than their low-redshift, massive, and below the MS counterparts. Interestingly, the correlation between age, M$_*$ and SFR existed even earlier than Cosmic Noon, out to the earliest cosmic epochs. However, these trends have a large scatter. Indeed, there are examples of young stellar populations also below the MS, indicating recent (bursty) star formation in evolved systems. We explore further the burstiness of the SFHs by using the ratio between SFR averaged over the last 10 Myr and averaged between 10 Myr and 100 Myr before the epoch of observation ($\mathrm{SFR_{cont, 10}/SFR_{cont, 90}}$). We find that high-redshift and low-mass galaxies have particularly bursty SFHs, while more massive and lower-redshift systems evolve more steadily. We also present the discovery of another (mini-)quenched galaxy at z = 4.4 (in addition to the one at z=7.3 reported by Looser et al. 2023), which might be only temporarily quiescent as a consequence of the extremely bursty evolution. Finally, we also find a steady decline of dust reddening of the stellar population approaching the earliest cosmic epochs, although some dust reddening is still observed in some of the highest redshift and most star forming systems.

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