Uncovering the MIR emission of quiescent galaxies with $JWST$

Abstract

We present a study of the mid-IR (MIR) emission of quiescent galaxies (QGs) beyond the local universe. Using deep $JWST$ imaging in the SMACS-0723 cluster field we identify a mass limited ($M_{\ast }>10^9$M${}_{\odot }$) sample of intermediate redshift QGs ($0.2<z<0.7$) and perform modeling of their rest-frame UV to MIR photometry. We find that QGs exhibit a range of MIR spectra that are composed of a stellar continuum and a dust component that is 1-2 orders of magnitude fainter to that of star-forming galaxies. The observed scatter in the MIR spectra, especially at ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{rest}}>5\mu$m, can be attributed to different dust continuum levels and/or the presence of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) features. The latter would indicate enhanced 11.3- and 12.7 $\mu$m PAHs strengths with respect to those at 6.2- and 7.7$\mu$m, consistent with the observed spectra of local ellipticals and indicative of soft radiation fields. Finally, we augment the average UV-to-MIR spectrum of the population with cold dust and gas emission in the far-IR/mm and construct a panchromatic UV-to-radio SED that can serve as a template for the future exploration of the interstellar medium of $z>0$ QGs with ALMA and $JWST$.

arXiv commentThe panchromatic QG SED has been made publicly available at http://www.georgiosmagdis.com/software

References in corpus (53)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code
• Multiwavelength study of massive galaxies at z~2. I. Star formation and galaxy growth
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• Detection of quiescent galaxies in a bicolor sequence from z=0-2
• Passively Evolving Early-type Galaxies at 1.4<z<2.5 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z=4 to the present day
• Drizzle: A Method for the Linear Reconstruction of Undersampled Images
• Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies at High Redshift
• Far Infrared and Submillimeter Emission from Galactic and Extragalactic Photo-Dissociation Regions
• COSMOS2020: A panchromatic view of the Universe to $z\sim 10$ from two complementary catalogs
• The Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope I: Introduction
• Andromeda's Dust
• Galaxy Stellar Mass Functions from ZFOURGE/CANDELS: An Excess of Low-Mass Galaxies Since z=2 and the Rapid Buildup of Quiescent Galaxies
• The Atlas3D project -- IV: the molecular gas content of early-type galaxies
• Defining the intrinsic AGN infrared spectral energy distribution and measuring its contribution to the infrared output of composite galaxies
• Variations of the Mid-IR Aromatic Features Inside and Among Galaxies
• The JWST Early Release Observations
• Spectroscopic Identification of Massive Galaxies at z~2.3 with Strongly Suppressed Star Formation
• RELICS: Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey
• Quiescent galaxies 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang and their progenitors
• An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at $z>3$ in Public $JWST$ Fields
• "Super-deblended" Dust Emission in Galaxies: II. Far-IR to (sub)millimeter photometry and high redshift galaxy candidates in the full COSMOS field
• A surprising abundance of massive quiescent galaxies at 3 < z < 5 in the first data from JWST CEERS
• Quiescent Galaxies in the 3D-HST Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Large Number of Galaxies with Relatively Old Stellar Populations at z~2
• The role of star-formation and AGN in dust heating of z = 0.3-2.8 galaxies - I. Evolution with redshift and luminosity
• Excitation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) Emission: Dependence on Size Distribution, Ionization, and Starlight Spectrum and Intensity
• Warm dust and aromatic bands as quantitative probes of star-formation activity
• Deep Absorption Line Studies of Quiescent Galaxies at z~2: The Dynamical Mass-Size Relation, and First Constraints on the Fundamental plane
• The Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope, III: MIRIM, The MIRI Imager
• The nature of faint Spitzer-selected dust-obscured galaxies
• The unexpectedly large dust and gas content of quiescent galaxies at z>1.4
• Properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in local elliptical galaxies revealed by the Infrared Spectrograph on Spitzer
• ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey: $HST$ and $Spitzer$ Photometry of 33 Lensed Fields Built with CHArGE
• The properties of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in galaxies: constraints on PAH sizes, charge and radiation fields
• PAHs as tracers of the molecular gas in star-forming galaxies
• The Typical Massive Quiescent Galaxy at z$\sim$3 is a Post-starburst
• Nearby early-type galaxies with ionized gas VI. The Spitzer-IRS view
• A Spitzer-IRS Spectroscopic atlas of early-type galaxies in the Revised Shapley-Ames Catalog
• The Interstellar Medium of Quiescent Galaxies and its Evolution With Time
• Distant red galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• A New Calibration of Star Formation Rate in Galaxies Based on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Emission
• The Evolving Interstellar Medium of Star-Forming Galaxies, as traced by $\text{Stardust}$
• First JWST observations of a gravitational lens: Mass model from new multiple images with near-infrared observations of SMACS J0723.3-7327
• The first large catalogue of spectroscopic redshifts in Webb's First Deep Field, SMACS J0723.3$-$7327
• Star-forming early- and quiescent late-type galaxies in the local Universe
• $JWST$ Insight Into a Lensed $HST$-dark Galaxy and its Quiescent Companion at $z=2.58$
• In pursuit of giants: II. Evolution of dusty quiescent galaxies over the last six billion years from the hCOSMOS survey
• The Gas Mass Reservoir of Quiescent Galaxies at Cosmic Noon
• PAH emission from star-forming galaxies in JWST mid-infrared imaging of the lensing cluster SMACS J0723.3$-$7327