RUBIES spectroscopically confirms the high number density of quiescent galaxies from $2<\mathbf{z}<5$

Abstract

We present the number density of massive ($\log ({\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }/{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot })>10.3$) quiescent galaxies at $2<z<5$ using JWST NIRSpec PRISM spectra. This work relies on spectra from RUBIES, which provides excellent data quality and an unparalleled, well-defined targeting strategy to robustly infer physical properties and number densities. We identify quiescent galaxy candidates within RUBIES through principal component analysis and construct a final sample using star formation histories derived from spectro-photometric fitting of the NIRSpec PRISM spectra and NIRCam photometry. By inverting the RUBIES selection function, we correct for survey incompleteness and calculate the number density of massive quiescent galaxies at these redshifts, providing the most complete spectroscopic estimates prior to cosmic noon to date. We find that early massive quiescent galaxies are surprisingly common ($\gtrsim 10^{-5}$ Mpc${}^{-3}$ by $4<z<5$), which is consistent with previous studies based on JWST photometry alone and/or in smaller survey areas. We compare our number densities with predictions from six state-of-the-art cosmological galaxy formation simulations. At $z>3$, most simulations fail to produce enough massive quiescent galaxies, suggesting the treatment of feedback and/or the channels for early efficient formation are incomplete in most galaxy evolution models.

arXiv comment28 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (98)

• Scikit-learn: Machine Learning in Python
• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package
• Cosmic Star Formation History
• The many lives of active galactic nuclei: cooling flows, black holes and the luminosities and colours of galaxies
• The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
• MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST). I: Solar-Scaled Models
• Observational Evidence of AGN Feedback
• The broken hierarchy of galaxy formation
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• CANDELS: The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey
• CANDELS: The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey - The Hubble Space Telescope Observations, Imaging Data Products and Mosaics
• Simulating Galaxy Formation with the IllustrisTNG Model
• The James Webb Space Telescope
• MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST) 0: Methods for the construction of stellar isochrones
• 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
• EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code
• First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: matter and galaxy clustering
• The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey: Initial Results From Optical and Near-Infrared Imaging
• MILES: A Medium resolution INT Library of Empirical Spectra
• The EAGLE simulations of galaxy formation: calibration of subgrid physics and model variations
• Physical Models of Galaxy Formation in a Cosmological Framework
• UniverseMachine: The Correlation between Galaxy Growth and Dark Matter Halo Assembly from z=0-10
• A Semi-Analytic Model for the Co-evolution of Galaxies, Black Holes, and Active Galactic Nuclei
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling III: model calibration, comparison, and evaluation
• Simba: Cosmological Simulations with Black Hole Growth and Feedback
• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• Analysis of galaxy SEDs from far-UV to far-IR with CIGALE: Studying a SINGS test sample
• Detection of quiescent galaxies in a bicolor sequence from z=0-2
• A unified model for AGN feedback in cosmological simulations of structure formation
• The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z=4 to the present day
• An updated MILES stellar library and stellar population models
• How to Measure Galaxy Star Formation Histories II: Nonparametric Models
• CEERS Key Paper I: An Early Look into the First 500 Myr of Galaxy Formation with JWST
• Deriving Physical Properties from Broadband Photometry with Prospector: Description of the Model and a Demonstration of its Accuracy Using 129 Galaxies in the Local Universe
• The NEWFIRM Medium-band Survey: Photometric Catalogs, Redshifts and the Bimodal Color Distribution of Galaxies out to z~3
• The James Webb Space Telescope Mission
• The EAGLE simulations of galaxy formation: public release of halo and galaxy catalogues
• The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning
• A unified multi-wavelength model of galaxy formation
• The Dust Attenuation Law in Distant Galaxies: Evidence for Variation with Spectral Type
• Efficient Formation of Massive Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn by Feedback-Free Starbursts
• How to measure galaxy star-formation histories I: Parametric models
• CEERS Epoch 1 NIRCam Imaging: Reduction Methods and Simulations Enabling Early JWST Science Results
• Shark: introducing an open source, free and flexible semi-analytic model of galaxy formation
• Near infrared spectroscopy and star-formation histories of 3<z<4 quiescent galaxies
• A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658
• On the stunning abundance of super-early, massive galaxies revealed by JWST
• A Large Population of Massive Compact Post-Starburst Galaxies at z>1: Implications for the Size Evolution and Quenching Mechanism of Quiescent Galaxies
• MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Quiescent Galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5. II - Star Formation Histories and Galaxy Quenching
• An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at $z>3$ in Public $JWST$ Fields
• Galaxy assembly, stellar feedback and metal enrichment: the view from the GAEA model
• In-orbit Performance of the Near-Infrared Spectrograph NIRSpec on the James Webb Space Telescope
• The MultiDark Database: Release of the Bolshoi and MultiDark Cosmological Simulations
• ProSpect: Generating Spectral Energy Distributions with Complex Star Formation and Metallicity Histories
• A surprising abundance of massive quiescent galaxies at 3 < z < 5 in the first data from JWST CEERS
• Effects of AGN feedback on LCDM galaxies
• The Hubble Legacy Field GOODS-S Photometric Catalog
• Half-mass radii for ~7,000 galaxies at 1.0 < z < 2.5: most of the evolution in the mass-size relation is due to color gradients
• Accelerating early massive galaxy formation with primordial black holes
• High-Velocity Outflows Without AGN Feedback: Eddington-Limited Star Formation in Compact Massive Galaxies
• A massive galaxy that formed its stars at $z\sim 11$
• Exploring the z=3-4 massive galaxy population with ZFOURGE: the prevalence of dusty and quiescent galaxies
• RUBIES: a complete census of the bright and red distant Universe with JWST/NIRSpec
• The JWST-PRIMAL Legacy Survey. A JWST/NIRSpec reference sample for the physical properties and Lyman-$\alpha$ absorption and emission of $\sim 500$ galaxies at $z=5.5-13.4$
• Galaxy Build-up in the first 1.5 Gyr of Cosmic History: Insights from the Stellar Mass Function at $z\sim 4-9$ from JWST NIRCam Observations
• Elemental Abundances in Milky Way-like Galaxies from a Hierarchical Galaxy Formation Model
• Convolution kernels for multi-wavelength imaging
• A population of faint, old, and massive quiescent galaxies at 3 < z < 4 revealed by JWST NIRSpec Spectroscopy
• The sizes of massive quiescent and star forming galaxies at z~4 with ZFOURGE and CANDELS
• Star Formation Shut Down by Multiphase Gas Outflow in a Galaxy at a Redshift of 2.45
• Beyond UVJ: More Efficient Selection of Quiescent Galaxies With UV / Mid-IR Fluxes
• Spatially Resolved Properties of High Redshift Galaxies in the SMACS0723 JWST ERO Field
• CEERS Key Paper IV: Galaxies at $4<z<9$ are Bluer than They Appear -- Characterizing Galaxy Stellar Populations from Rest-Frame $\sim 1$ micron Imaging
• A new method for classifying galaxy SEDs from multi-wavelength photometry
• Massive Compact Galaxies with High-Velocity Outflows: Morphological Analysis and Constraints on AGN Activity
• Recovering the star formation histories of recently-quenched galaxies: the impact of model and prior choices
• Halpha and 4000 Angstrom Break Measurements for ~3500 K-selected Galaxies at 0.5<z<2.0
• Quenching of star formation from a lack of inflowing gas to galaxies
• COSMOS-Web: stellar mass assembly in relation to dark matter halos across $0.2<z<12$ of cosmic history
• ALMA measures rapidly depleted molecular gas reservoirs in massive quiescent galaxies at z~1.5
• Tracing the Quenching Journey across Cosmic Time
• Extremely Low Molecular Gas Content in a Compact, Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.522
• RUBIES: A Spectroscopic Census of Little Red Dots; All V-Shaped Point Sources Have Broad Lines
• ZFOURGE: Using Composite Spectral Energy Distributions to Characterize Galaxy Populations at 1<z<4
• Cosmic Vine: A z=3.44 large-scale structure hosting massive quiescent galaxies
• Beyond UVJ: Color Selection of Galaxies in the JWST Era
• The Role of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Quenching of Massive Galaxies in the SQuiGGLE Survey
• The NIRSpec Wide GTO Survey
• Exploring over 700 massive quiescent galaxies at z = 2-7: Demographics and stellar mass functions
• On the Significance of Rare Objects at High Redshift: The Impact of Cosmic Variance
• Star formation and molecular gas properties of post-starburst galaxies
• A merging pair of massive quiescent galaxies at $z=3.44$ in the Cosmic Vine
• The Velocity Dispersion Function for Massive Quiescent and Star-Forming Galaxies at 0.6 $<$ z $\le$ 1.0

Cited by in corpus (4)

• When relics were made: vigorous stellar rotation and low dark matter content in the massive ultra-compact galaxy GS-9209 at z=4.66
• A census of quiescent galaxies across $0.5<z<8$ with JWST/MIRI: Mass-dependent number density evolution of quiescent galaxies in the early Universe
• The stellar mass function of quiescent and star-forming galaxies and its dependence on morphology in COSMOS-Web
• A Bending in the Size-mass Relation of Star-forming Galaxies across $0.5<z<6.0$ at a Critical Stellar Mass of $10^{10}{M}_{\odot }$ Revealed by JWST