Early Results From GLASS-JWST. XVII: Building the First Galaxies -- Chapter 1. Star Formation Histories at 5<z < 7

Abstract

JWST observations of high redshift galaxies are used to measure their star formation histories - the buildup of stellar mass in the earliest galaxies. Here we use a novel analysis program, SEDz*, to compare near-IR spectral energy distributions for galaxies with redshifts 5 < z < 7 to combinations of stellar population templates evolved from z = 12. We exploit NIRCam imaging in 7 wide bands covering 1-5 mu m, taken in the context of the GLASS-JWST-ERS program, and use SEDz* to solve for well-constrained star formation histories for 24 exemplary galaxies. In this first look we find a variety of histories, from long, continuous star formation over 5 < z < 12 to short but intense starbursts - sometimes repeating, and, most commonly, contiguous mass buildup lasting ~ 0.5 Myr,possibly the seeds of today's typical, M* galaxies.

ApJL in press (accepted on October 30, 2022)

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• The James Webb Space Telescope Mission
• Identification and properties of intense star-forming galaxies at redshifts z>10
• Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XXI: Rapid assembly of a galaxy at z=6.23 revealed by its C/O abundance
• JADES: The star-formation and chemical enrichment history of a luminous galaxy at z~9.43 probed by ultra-deep JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy
• JWST FRESCO: a comprehensive census of H$\beta$+[OIII] emitters at 6.8<z<9.0 in the GOODS fields
• ASTRODEEP-JWST: NIRCam-HST multiband photometry and redshifts for half a million sources in six extragalactic deep fields
• SPICE: the connection between cosmic reionisation and stellar feedback in the first galaxies
• Narrow line AGN selection in CEERS: spectroscopic selection, physical properties, X-ray and radio analysis
• Constraints on the early Universe star formation efficiency from galaxy clustering and halo modeling of H$\alpha$ and [O III] emitters
• The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science Program. IV. Data release of 263 spectra from 245 unique sources
• A Tentative Detection of Molecular Hydrogen (H${}_2$) Emission Lines at Cosmic Dawn
• The JWST Emission Line Survey (JELS): The sizes and merger fraction of star-forming galaxies during the Epoch of Reionization
• The slope and scatter of the star forming main sequence at z~5 : reconciling observations with simulations
• A physically-motivated template set for high-z galaxy SED fitting