Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/29670
Title: | Analogues of primeval galaxies two billion years after the Big Bang | Authors: | Amorín, Ricardo FONTANA, Adriano Pérez-Montero, Enrique CASTELLANO, MARCO Guaita, Lucia GRAZIAN, Andrea Le Fèvre, Olivier Ribeiro, Bruno Schaerer, Daniel Tasca, Lidia A. M. Thomas, Romain BARDELLI, Sandro CASSARA, LETIZIA PASQUA CASSATA, PAOLO CIMATTI, ANDREA Contini, Thierry de Barros, Stephane GARILLI, BIANCA MARIA ROSA Giavalisco, Mauro Hathi, Nimish Koekemoer, Anton Le Brun, Vincent Lemaux, Brian C. Maccagni, Dario PENTERICCI, Laura Pforr, Janine Talia, Margherita Tresse, Laurence VANZELLA, Eros VERGANI, DANIELA ZAMORANI, Giovanni ZUCCA, Elena MERLIN, Emiliano |
Issue Date: | 2017 | Journal: | NATURE ASTRONOMY | Number: | 1 | Issue: | 3 | First Page: | 0052 | Abstract: | Deep observations are revealing a growing number of young galaxies in the first billion years of cosmic time<SUP>1</SUP>. Compared to typical galaxies at later times, they show more extreme emission-line properties<SUP>2</SUP>, higher star formation rates<SUP>3</SUP>, lower masses<SUP>4</SUP>, and smaller sizes<SUP>5</SUP>. However, their faintness precludes studies of their chemical abundances and ionization conditions, strongly limiting our understanding of the physics driving early galaxy build-up and metal enrichment. Here we study a rare population of ultraviolet-selected, low-luminosity galaxies at redshift 2.4 < z < 3.5 that exhibit all the rest-frame properties expected from primeval galaxies. These low-mass, highly compact systems are rapidly forming galaxies able to double their stellar mass in only a few tens of millions of years. They are characterized by very blue ultraviolet spectra with weak absorption features and bright nebular emission lines, which imply hard radiation fields from young hot massive stars<SUP>6,7</SUP>. Their highly ionized gas phase has strongly sub-solar carbon and oxygen abundances, with metallicities more than a factor of two lower than that found in typical galaxies of similar mass and star formation rate at z≤2.5<SUP>8</SUP>. These young galaxies reveal an early and short stage in the assembly of their galactic structures and their chemical evolution, a vigorous phase that is likely to be dominated by the effects of gas-rich mergers, accretion of metal-poor gas and strong outflows. | URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/29670 | URL: | https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.04416 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-017-0052 |
ISSN: | 2397-3366 | DOI: | 10.1038/s41550-017-0052 | Bibcode ADS: | 2017NatAs...1E..52A | Fulltext: | open |
Appears in Collections: | 1.01 Articoli in rivista |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Amorin2017.pdf | preprint | 2.39 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
Nat. Astr. s41550-017-0052.pdf | [Administrators only] | 1.07 MB | Adobe PDF |
Page view(s)
82
checked on Apr 19, 2024
Download(s)
14
checked on Apr 19, 2024
Google ScholarTM
Check
Altmetric
Altmetric
Items in DSpace are published in Open Access, unless otherwise indicated.