_version_ 1866912470626467840
author D'Eugenio, Francesco
Helton, Jakob M.
Hainline, Kevin
Sun, Fengwu
Maiolino, Roberto
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Juodžbalis, Ignas
Arribas, Santiago
Bunker, Andrew J.
Carniani, Stefano
Curtis-Lake, Emma
Egami, Eiichi
Eisenstein, Daniel J.
Johnson, Benjamin D.
Robertson, Brant
Tacchella, Sandro
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Willott, Chris
Baker, William M.
Danhaive, A. Lola
Duan, Qiao
Fudamoto, Yoshinobu
Jones, Gareth C.
Lin, Xiaojing
Liu, Weizhe
Perna, Michele
Puskás, Dávid
Rinaldi, Pierluigi
Scholtz, Jan
Sun, Yang
Trussler, James A. A.
Übler, Hannah
Venturi, Giacomo
Williams, Christina C.
Zhu, Yongda
author_facet D'Eugenio, Francesco
Helton, Jakob M.
Hainline, Kevin
Sun, Fengwu
Maiolino, Roberto
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Juodžbalis, Ignas
Arribas, Santiago
Bunker, Andrew J.
Carniani, Stefano
Curtis-Lake, Emma
Egami, Eiichi
Eisenstein, Daniel J.
Johnson, Benjamin D.
Robertson, Brant
Tacchella, Sandro
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Willott, Chris
Baker, William M.
Danhaive, A. Lola
Duan, Qiao
Fudamoto, Yoshinobu
Jones, Gareth C.
Lin, Xiaojing
Liu, Weizhe
Perna, Michele
Puskás, Dávid
Rinaldi, Pierluigi
Scholtz, Jan
Sun, Yang
Trussler, James A. A.
Übler, Hannah
Venturi, Giacomo
Williams, Christina C.
Zhu, Yongda
contents We report the discovery of a remarkably large and luminous line-emitting nebula extending on either side of the Balmer-break galaxy JADES-GS-518794 at z=5.89, detected with JADES JWST/NIRCam imaging in [O III]$λλ$4959,5007 and H$α$ and spectroscopically confirmed with NIRCam/WFSS thanks to the pure-parallel SAPPHIRES programme. The end-to-end velocity offset is $Δv=830\pm130$ km s$^{-1}$. Nebulae with such large size and high luminosity (25-pkpc diameter, L[O III] = $1.2\times 10^{10}$ L$_\odot$) are routinely observed around bright quasars, unlike JADES-GS-518794. With a stellar mass of $10^{10.1}$ M$_\odot$, this galaxy is at the knee of the mass function at z=6. Its star-formation rate declined for some time (10-100 Myr prior to observation), followed by a recent (10 Myr) upturn. This system is part of a candidate large-scale galaxy overdensity, with an excess of Balmer-break galaxies compared to the field (3 $σ$). We discuss the possible origin of this nebula as material from a merger or gas expelled by an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The symmetry of the nebula, its bubble-like morphology, kinematics, high luminosity, and the extremely high equivalent width of [OIII] together favour the AGN interpretation. Intriguingly, there may be a physical connection between the presence of such a large, luminous nebula and the possible metamorphosis of the central galaxy towards quenching.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_15590
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle JADES and SAPPHIRES: Galaxy Metamorphosis Amidst a Huge, Luminous Emission-line Region
D'Eugenio, Francesco
Helton, Jakob M.
Hainline, Kevin
Sun, Fengwu
Maiolino, Roberto
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Juodžbalis, Ignas
Arribas, Santiago
Bunker, Andrew J.
Carniani, Stefano
Curtis-Lake, Emma
Egami, Eiichi
Eisenstein, Daniel J.
Johnson, Benjamin D.
Robertson, Brant
Tacchella, Sandro
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Willott, Chris
Baker, William M.
Danhaive, A. Lola
Duan, Qiao
Fudamoto, Yoshinobu
Jones, Gareth C.
Lin, Xiaojing
Liu, Weizhe
Perna, Michele
Puskás, Dávid
Rinaldi, Pierluigi
Scholtz, Jan
Sun, Yang
Trussler, James A. A.
Übler, Hannah
Venturi, Giacomo
Williams, Christina C.
Zhu, Yongda
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We report the discovery of a remarkably large and luminous line-emitting nebula extending on either side of the Balmer-break galaxy JADES-GS-518794 at z=5.89, detected with JADES JWST/NIRCam imaging in [O III]$λλ$4959,5007 and H$α$ and spectroscopically confirmed with NIRCam/WFSS thanks to the pure-parallel SAPPHIRES programme. The end-to-end velocity offset is $Δv=830\pm130$ km s$^{-1}$. Nebulae with such large size and high luminosity (25-pkpc diameter, L[O III] = $1.2\times 10^{10}$ L$_\odot$) are routinely observed around bright quasars, unlike JADES-GS-518794. With a stellar mass of $10^{10.1}$ M$_\odot$, this galaxy is at the knee of the mass function at z=6. Its star-formation rate declined for some time (10-100 Myr prior to observation), followed by a recent (10 Myr) upturn. This system is part of a candidate large-scale galaxy overdensity, with an excess of Balmer-break galaxies compared to the field (3 $σ$). We discuss the possible origin of this nebula as material from a merger or gas expelled by an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The symmetry of the nebula, its bubble-like morphology, kinematics, high luminosity, and the extremely high equivalent width of [OIII] together favour the AGN interpretation. Intriguingly, there may be a physical connection between the presence of such a large, luminous nebula and the possible metamorphosis of the central galaxy towards quenching.
title JADES and SAPPHIRES: Galaxy Metamorphosis Amidst a Huge, Luminous Emission-line Region
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.15590