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 $z=0$.

Accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (31)

• 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 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
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• Stellar Population Inference with Prospector
• Forty-Seven Milky Way-Sized, Extremely Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• NIRCam Performance on JWST In Flight
• A High Stellar Velocity Dispersion and ~100 Globular Clusters for the Ultra Diffuse Galaxy Dragonfly 44
• A second galaxy missing dark matter in the NGC1052 group
• JWST's PEARLS: Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science: Project Overview and First Results
• The abundance of ultra-diffuse galaxies from groups to clusters: UDGs are relatively more common in more massive haloes
• ProFit: Bayesian Profile Fitting of Galaxy Images
• GALEX observations of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies: UV color and star formation efficiency
• Observational Properties of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies in the Field: Field-UDGs are Predominantly Blue and Starforming
• The evolution of ultra-diffuse galaxies in nearby galaxy clusters from the Kapteyn IAC WEAVE INT Clusters Survey ($\text{KIWICS}$)
• Three-dimensional Multi-probe Analysis of the Galaxy Cluster A1689
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Paper 1: The JWST PEARLS View of the El Gordo Galaxy Cluster and of the Structure It Magnifies
• Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in z > 1 Galaxy Clusters: HST approaches the Progenitors of Local Ultra Diffuse 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