An Extremely Compact, Low-mass Galaxy on its Way to Quiescence at z = 5.2
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract We report the discovery of a low-mass z = 5.200 ± 0.002 galaxy that is in the process of ceasing its star formation. The galaxy, MACS0417-z5BBG, is multiply imaged with magnification factors ∼40 by the galaxy cluster MACS J0417.5-1154, observed as part of the CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS). Using observations of MACS0417-z5BBG with a JWST/NIRSpec Prism spectrum and NIRCam imaging, we investigate the mechanism responsible for the cessation of star formation of the galaxy and speculate about possibilities for its future. Using spectrophotometric fitting, we find a remarkably low stellar mass of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>*</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>4.3</mml:mn> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0.8</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0.9</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>⊙</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> , less than 1% of the characteristic stellar mass at z ∼ 5. We measure a delensed rest-UV half-light radius in the source plane of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>30</mml:mn> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>5</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> pc and measure a star formation rate from H α of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>0.14</mml:mn> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0.12</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0.17</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> M ⊙ yr −1 . We find that under the assumption of a double power-law star formation history, MACS0417-z5BBG has seen a recent rise in star formation, peaking ∼10–30 Myr ago and declining precipitously since then. Together, these measurements reveal a low-mass, extremely compact galaxy which is in the process of ceasing star formation. We investigate the possibilities of mechanisms that have led to the cessation of star formation in MACS0417-z5BBG, considering stellar and active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback and environmental processes. We can likely rule out most environmental processes but leave open the possibility of a low-mass AGN that does not leave a broad-line imprint on the spectrum or that MACS0417-z5BBG could be a star-forming galaxy in the lull of a bursty star formation history.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.003 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".