PEARLS: Low Stellar Density Galaxies in the El Gordo Cluster Observed with JWST

Abstract

A full understanding of how unusually large "Ultra Diffuse Galaxies" (UDGs) fit into our conventional understanding of dwarf galaxies remains elusive, despite the large number of objects identified locally. A natural extension of UDG research is the study of similar galaxies at higher redshift to establish how their properties may evolve over time. However, this has been a challenging task given how severely systematic effects and cosmological surface brightness dimming inhibit our ability to study low-surface brightness galaxies at high-$z$. Here, we present an identification of low stellar surface density galaxies (LDGs), likely the progenitors of local UDGs, at moderate redshift with deep near-IR observations of the El Gordo cluster at $z=0.87$ with JWST. By stacking 8 NIRCAM filters, we are able to achieve an apparent surface brightness sensitivity of $24.59$ mag arcsec${}^{-2}$, faint enough to be complete to the bright end of the LDG population. Our analysis identifies significant differences between this population and local UDGs, such as their color and size distributions, which suggest that UDG progenitors are bluer and more extended at high-$z$ than at $z=0$. This suggests that multiple mechanisms are responsible for UDG formation and that prolonged transformation of cluster dwarfs is not a primary UDG formation mechanism at high-$z$. Furthermore, we find a slight overabundance of LDGs in El Gordo, and, in contrast to findings in local clusters, our analysis does not show a deficit of LDGs in the center of El Gordo, implying that tidal destruction of LDGs is significant between $z=0.87$ and $z=0$.

arXiv commentAccepted to ApJ

References in corpus (74)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• A Comprehensive Measurement of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant with 1 km/s/Mpc Uncertainty from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SH0ES Team
• The Optical and Near-Infrared Properties of Galaxies: I. Luminosity and Stellar Mass Functions
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling III: model calibration, comparison, and evaluation
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): survey diagnostics and core data release
• Stellar Population Inference with Prospector
• A concise reference to (projected) Sersic R^{1/n} quantities, including Concentration, Profile Slopes, Petrosian indices, and Kron Magnitudes
• Forty-Seven Milky Way-Sized, Extremely Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• A galaxy lacking dark matter
• NIRCam Performance on JWST In Flight
• Ultra-diffuse galaxies: the high-spin tail of the abundant dwarf galaxy population
• A High Stellar Velocity Dispersion and ~100 Globular Clusters for the Ultra Diffuse Galaxy Dragonfly 44
• (Almost) Dark Galaxies in the ALFALFA Survey: Isolated HI Bearing Ultra Diffuse Galaxies
• Galaxies at the extremes: Ultra-diffuse galaxies in the Virgo Cluster
• RELICS: Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey
• A second galaxy missing dark matter in the NGC1052 group
• Ultra diffuse galaxies outside clusters: clues to their formation and evolution
• Unveiling a Rich System of Faint Dwarf Galaxies in the Next Generation Fornax Survey
• An overmassive Dark Halo around an Ultra-diffuse Galaxy in the Virgo Cluster
• ProFound: Source Extraction and Application to Modern Survey Data
• The origin of ultra diffuse galaxies: stellar feedback and quenching
• The abundance and spatial distribution of ultra-diffuse galaxies in nearby galaxy clusters
• The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: ACT-CL J0102-4915 "El Gordo," a Massive Merging Cluster at Redshift 0.87
• The Formation of Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in Cored Dark Matter Halos Through Tidal Stripping and Heating
• The Number Density of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies with 23<mu_0<25 V-mag/sqr-arcsecond
• Quantifying cosmic variance
• JWST's PEARLS: Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science: Project Overview and First Results
• Spatial distribution of ultra-diffuse galaxies within large-scale structures
• Galaxy Populations and Evolution in Clusters III. The Origin of Low-Mass Galaxies in Clusters: Constraints from Stellar Populations
• The 1.6um Bump as a Photometric Redshift Indicator
• The abundance of ultra-diffuse galaxies from groups to clusters: UDGs are relatively more common in more massive haloes
• The Next Generation Fornax Survey (NGFS): II. The Central Dwarf Galaxy Population
• ProFit: Bayesian Profile Fitting of Galaxy Images
• Spatially-resolved stellar kinematics of the ultra diffuse galaxy Dragonfly 44. I. Observations, kinematics, and cold dark matter halo fits
• Tidal stripping as a possible origin of the ultra diffuse galaxy lacking dark matter
• GALEX observations of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies: UV color and star formation efficiency
• Weighing "El Gordo" with a Precision Scale: Hubble Space Telescope Weak-lensing Analysis of the Merging Galaxy Cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915 at z=0.87
• Galaxy Populations and Evolution in Clusters II: Defining Cluster Populations
• Origins of ultra-diffuse galaxies in the Coma cluster II. Constraints from their stellar populations
• Spectroscopic characterisation of the stellar content of ultra diffuse galaxies
• Observational Properties of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies in the Field: Field-UDGs are Predominantly Blue and Starforming
• The HI content of isolated ultra-diffuse galaxies: A sign of multiple formation mechanisms?
• The evolution of ultra-diffuse galaxies in nearby galaxy clusters from the Kapteyn IAC WEAVE INT Clusters Survey ($\text{KIWICS}$)
• Low Metallicities and Old Ages for Three Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• Ultra-diffuse and Ultra-compact Galaxies in the Frontier Fields Cluster Abell 2744
• Three-dimensional Multi-probe Analysis of the Galaxy Cluster A1689
• Evidence for Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy `Formation' Through Galaxy Interactions
• The early-type dwarf galaxy population of the Fornax cluster
• Hubble Space Telescope survey of the Perseus Cluster - I: The structure and dark matter content of cluster dwarf spheroidals
• JWST's PEARLS: a new lens model for ACT-CL J0102$-$4915, "EL Gordo'', and the first red supergiant star at cosmological distances discovered by JWST
• The Stellar Populations of Two Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies from Optical and Near-infrared Photometry
• Mock Lightcones and Theory Friendly Catalogs for the CANDELS Survey
• The Distribution of Ultra-Diffuse and Ultra-Compact Galaxies in the Frontier Fields
• Origin and evolution of ultra-diffuse galaxies in different environments
• Reviewing the frequency and central depletion of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies in galaxy clusters from the KIWICS survey
• The geometry and origin of ultra-diffuse ghost galaxies
• Hubble Space Telescope Survey of the Perseus Cluster: II. Photometric scaling relations in different environments
• Detection of a Large Population of Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in Massive Galaxy Clusters: Abell S1063 and Abell 2744
• The stellar populations of quiescent ultra-diffuse galaxies from optical to mid-infrared spectral energy distribution fitting
• The Fate of Gas rich Satellites in Clusters
• What's in a name? Quantifying the interplay between the Definition, Orientation, and Shape of Ultra-diffuse Galaxies Using the Romulus Simulations
• The Nature of Ultra-diffuse Galaxies in Distant Massive Galaxy Clusters: Abell 370 in the Hubble Frontier Fields
• Still at Odds with Conventional Galaxy Evolution: The Star Formation History of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy Dragonfly 44
• A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE).X. Formation of a red ultra-diffuse galaxy and an almost dark galaxy during a ram-pressure stripping event
• Intrinsic Morphology of Ultra-diffuse Galaxies
• Paper 1: The JWST PEARLS View of the El Gordo Galaxy Cluster and of the Structure It Magnifies
• Hubble Space Telescope survey of the Perseus Cluster -III: The effect of local environment on dwarf galaxies
• Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in z > 1 Galaxy Clusters: HST approaches the Progenitors of Local Ultra Diffuse Galaxies
• Coma Cluster Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies Are Not Standard Radio Galaxies
• Probing ultra-diffuse galaxies out to the virial radius of the Coma cluster with XMM-Newton

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Shedding Light on Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in Dark Energy Survey with Transformers