Strong lensing offers a precious opportunity for studying the formation and early evolution of super star clusters that are rare in our cosmic backyard. The Sunburst Arc, a lensed Cosmic Noon galaxy, hosts a young super star cluster with escaping Lyman continuum radiation. Analyzing archival Hubble Space Telescope images and emission line data from Very Large Telescope/MUSE and X-shooter, we construct a physical model for the cluster and its surrounding photoionized nebula. We confirm that the cluster is ≲4 Myr old, is extremely massive
The earliest stages of star formation, when young stars are still deeply embedded in their natal clouds, represent a critical phase in the matter cycle between gas clouds and young stellar regions. Until now, the high-resolution infrared observations required for characterizing this heavily obscured phase (during which massive stars have formed, but optical emission is not detected) could only be obtained for a handful of the most nearby galaxies. One of the main hurdles has been the limited angular resolution of the Spitzer Space Telescope. With the revolutionary capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), it is now possible to investigate the matter cycle during the earliest phases of star formation as a function of the galactic environment. In this Letter, we demonstrate this by measuring the duration of the embedded phase of star formation and the implied time over which molecular clouds remain inert in the galaxy NGC 628 at a distance of 9.8 Mpc, demonstrating that the cosmic volume where this measurement can be made has increased by a factor of >100 compared to Spitzer. We show that young massive stars remain embedded for
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10397624
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Volume:
- 944
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2041-8205
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. L20
- Size(s):
- ["Article No. L20"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
Nitrogen-enriched, Highly Pressurized Nebular Clouds Surrounding a Super Star Cluster at Cosmic Noon
Abstract M ⋆∼ 107M ⊙, and yet has a central component as compact as several parsecs, and we find a gas-phase metallicityZ = (0.22 ± 0.03)Z ⊙. The cluster is surrounded by ≳105M ⊙of dense clouds that have been pressurized toP ∼ 109K cm−3by perhaps stellar radiation at within 10 pc. These should have large neutral columnsN HI> 1022.8cm−2to survive rapid ejection by radiation pressure. The clouds are likely dusty as they show gas-phase depletion of silicon, and may be conducive to secondary star formation ifN HI> 1024cm−2or if they sink farther toward the cluster center. Detecting strong [Niii ]λ λ 1750,1752, we infer heavy nitrogen enrichment . This requires efficiently retaining ≳500M ⊙of nitrogen in the high-pressure clouds from massive stars heavier than 60M ⊙up to 4 Myr. We suggest a physical origin of the high-pressure clouds from partial or complete condensation of slow massive star ejecta, which may have an important implication for the puzzle of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters. -
Abstract We report the discovery of Pavo, a faint (
M V = −10.0), star-forming, irregular, and extremely isolated dwarf galaxy atD ≈ 2 Mpc. Pavo was identified in Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey imaging via a novel approach that combines low surface brightness galaxy search algorithms and machine-learning candidate classifications. Follow-up imaging with the Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph on the 6.5 m Magellan Baade telescope revealed a color–magnitude diagram (CMD) with an old stellar population, in addition to the young population that dominates the integrated light, and a tip of the red giant branch distance estimate of Mpc. The blue population of stars in the CMD is consistent with the youngest stars having formed no later than 150 Myr ago. We also detected no Hα emission with SOAR telescope imaging, suggesting that we may be witnessing a temporary low in Pavo’s star formation. We estimate the total stellar mass of Pavo to be and measure an upper limit on its Hi gas mass of 1.0 × 106M ⊙based on the HIPASS survey. Given these properties, Pavo’s closest analog is Leo P (D = 1.6 Mpc), previously the only known isolated, star-forming, Local Volume dwarf galaxy in this mass range. However, Pavo appears to be even more isolated, with no other known galaxy residing within over 600 kpc. As surveys and search techniques continue to improve, we anticipate an entire population of analogous objects being detected just outside the Local Group. -
Abstract We present observations of the dwarf galaxies GALFA Dw3 and GALFA Dw4 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. These galaxies were initially discovered as optical counterparts to compact H
i clouds in the GALFA survey. Both objects resolve into stellar populations which display old red giant branch (RGB), younger helium-burning, and massive main sequence stars. We use the tip of the RGB method to determine the distance to each galaxy, finding distances of Mpc and Mpc, respectively. With these distances we show that both galaxies are extremely isolated, with no other confirmed objects within ∼1.5 Mpc of either dwarf. GALFA Dw4 is also found to be unusually compact for a galaxy of its luminosity. GALFA Dw3 and Dw4 contain Hii regions with young star clusters and an overall irregular morphology; they show evidence of ongoing star formation through both ultraviolet and Hα observations and are therefore classified as dwarf irregulars (dIrrs). The star formation histories of these two dwarfs show distinct differences: Dw3 shows signs of a recently ceased episode of active star formation across the entire dwarf, while Dw4 shows some evidence for current star formation in spatially limited Hii regions. Compact Hi sources offer a promising method for identifying isolated field dwarfs in the Local Volume, including GALFA Dw3 and Dw4, with the potential to shed light on the driving mechanisms of dwarf galaxy formation and evolution. -
Abstract We present measurements of the rest-frame UV spectral slope,
β , for a sample of 36 faint star-forming galaxies atz ∼ 9–16 discovered in one of the deepest JWST NIRCam surveys to date, the Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public Survey. We use robust photometric measurements for UV-faint galaxies (down toM UV∼ −16), originally published in Leung et al., and measure values of the UV spectral slope via photometric power-law fitting to both the observed photometry and stellar population models obtained through spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting withBagpipes . We obtain a median and 68% confidence interval forβ from photometric power-law fitting of and from SED fitting, for the full sample. We show that when only two to three photometric detections are available, SED fitting has a lower scatter and reduced biases than photometric power-law fitting. We quantify this bias and find that after correction the median . We measure physical properties for our galaxies withBagpipes and find that our faint ( ) sample is low in mass ( ), fairly dust-poor ( mag), and modestly young ( yr) with a median star formation rate of . We find no strong evidence for ultrablue UV spectral slopes (β ∼ −3) within our sample, as would be expected for exotically metal-poor (Z /Z ⊙< 10−3) stellar populations with very high Lyman continuum escape fractions. Our observations are consistent with model predictions that galaxies of these stellar masses atz ∼ 9–16 should have only modestly low metallicities (Z /Z ⊙∼ 0.1–0.2). -
Abstract HR 8799 is a young A5/F0 star hosting four directly imaged giant planets at wide separations (∼16–78 au), which are undergoing orbital motion and have been continuously monitored with adaptive optics imaging since their discovery over a decade ago. We present a dynamical mass of HR 8799 using 130 epochs of relative astrometry of its planets, which include both published measurements and new medium-band 3.1
μ m observations that we acquired with NIRC2 at Keck Observatory. For the purpose of measuring the host-star mass, each orbiting planet is treated as a massless particle and is fit with a Keplerian orbit using Markov chain Monte Carlo. We then use a Bayesian framework to combine each independent total mass measurement into a cumulative dynamical mass using all four planets. The dynamical mass of HR 8799 isM ⊙assuming a uniform stellar mass prior, orM ⊙with a weakly informative prior based on spectroscopy. There is a strong covariance between the planets’ eccentricities and the total system mass; when the constraint is limited to low-eccentricity solutions ofe < 0.1, which are motivated by dynamical stability, our mass measurement improves toM ⊙. Our dynamical mass and other fundamental measured parameters of HR 8799 together with Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics Isochrones and Stellar Tracks grids yields a bulk metallicity most consistent with [Fe/H] ∼ −0.25–0.00 dex and an age of 10–23 Myr for the system. This implies hot-start masses of 2.7–4.9M Jupfor HR 8799 b and 4.1–7.0M Jupfor HR 8799 c, d, and e, assuming they formed at the same time as the host star.