Spectroscopic confirmation of two luminous galaxies at a redshift of 14

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Carniani, Stefano; Hainline, Kevin; D'Eugenio, Francesco; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Jakobsen, Peter; Witstok, Joris; Johnson, Benjamin D.; Chevallard, Jacopo; Maiolino, Roberto; Helton, Jakob M.; Willott, Chris; Robertson, Brant; Alberts, Stacey; Arribas, Santiago; Baker, William M.; Bhatawdekar, Rachana; Boyett, Kristan; Bunker, Andrew J.; Cameron, Alex J.; Cargile, Phillip A.; Charlot, Stephane; Curti, Mirko; Curtis-Lake, Emma; Egami, Eiichi; Giardino, Giovanna; Isaak, Kate; Ji, Zhiyuan; Jones, Gareth C.; Kumari, Nimisha; Maseda, Michael V.; Parlanti, Eleonora; Perez-Gonzalez, Pablo G.; Rawle, Tim; Rieke, George; Rieke, Marcia; Del Pino, Bruno Rodriguez; Saxena, Aayush; Scholtz, Jan; Smit, Renske; Sun, Fengwu; Tacchella, Sandro; Ubler, Hannah; Venturi, Giacomo; Williams, Christina C.; Willmer, Christopher N. A.
• 署名单位: Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa; University of Arizona; University of Cambridge; University of Cambridge; Smithsonian Institution; University of Copenhagen; Niels Bohr Institute; University of Oxford; University of London; University College London; National Research Council Canada; University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC); CSIC - Centro de Astrobiologia (INTA); European Space Agency; European Space Astronomy Center; University of Melbourne; Sorbonne Universite; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); European Southern Observatory; University of Hertfordshire; European Space Agency; European Space Research & Technology Centre; Space Telescope Science Institute; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; Liverpool John Moores University
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-4929
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07860-9
• 发表日期: 2024-09-12
• 关键词: star-forming galaxies; dust; stellar; emission; absorption; RESOLUTION; abundance; project; mass

摘要

The first observations of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revolutionized our understanding of the Universe by identifying galaxies at redshift z approximate to 13 (refs. (1,2,3)). In addition, the discovery of many luminous galaxies at Cosmic Dawn (z > 10) has suggested that galaxies developed rapidly, in apparent tension with many standard models(4,5,6,7,8). However, most of these galaxies lack spectroscopic confirmation, so their distances and properties are uncertain. Here we present JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey-Near-Infrared Spectrograph spectroscopic confirmation of two luminous galaxies at z=14.32(-0.20)(+0.08) and z = 13.90 +/- 0.17. The spectra reveal ultraviolet continua with prominent Lyman-alpha breaks but no detected emission lines. This discovery proves that luminous galaxies were already in place 300 million years after the Big Bang and are more common than what was expected before JWST. The most distant of the two galaxies is unexpectedly luminous and is spatially resolved with a radius of 260 parsecs. Considering also the very steep ultraviolet slope of the second galaxy, we conclude that both are dominated by stellar continuum emission, showing that the excess of luminous galaxies in the early Universe cannot be entirely explained by accretion onto black holes. Galaxy formation models will need to address the existence of such large and luminous galaxies so early in cosmic history.