_version_ 1866911164659662848
author Donnan, Callum T.
Dickinson, Mark
Taylor, Anthony J.
Haro, Pablo Arrabal
Finkelstein, Steven L.
Stanton, Thomas M.
Jung, Intae
Papovich, Casey
Akins, Hollis B.
Koekemoer, Anton M.
McLeod, Derek J.
Napolitano, Lorenzo
Amorín, Ricardo O.
Begley, Ryan
Burgarella, Denis
Carnall, Adam C.
Casey, Caitlin M.
Calabrò, Antonello
Cullen, Fergus
Dunlop, James S.
Ellis, Richard S.
Fernández, Vital
Giavalisco, Mauro
Hirschmann, Michaela
Hu, Weida
Illingworth, Garth
Kartaltepe, Jeyhan S.
Kocevski, Dale D.
Kokorev, Vasily
Leung, Ho-Hin
Lucas, Ray A.
Morales, Alexa M.
McLure, Ross
Pentericci, Laura
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Somerville, Rachel S.
Stevenson, Struan
Trump, Jonathan R.
Yung, L. Y. Aaron
Zavala, Jorge A.
author_facet Donnan, Callum T.
Dickinson, Mark
Taylor, Anthony J.
Haro, Pablo Arrabal
Finkelstein, Steven L.
Stanton, Thomas M.
Jung, Intae
Papovich, Casey
Akins, Hollis B.
Koekemoer, Anton M.
McLeod, Derek J.
Napolitano, Lorenzo
Amorín, Ricardo O.
Begley, Ryan
Burgarella, Denis
Carnall, Adam C.
Casey, Caitlin M.
Calabrò, Antonello
Cullen, Fergus
Dunlop, James S.
Ellis, Richard S.
Fernández, Vital
Giavalisco, Mauro
Hirschmann, Michaela
Hu, Weida
Illingworth, Garth
Kartaltepe, Jeyhan S.
Kocevski, Dale D.
Kokorev, Vasily
Leung, Ho-Hin
Lucas, Ray A.
Morales, Alexa M.
McLure, Ross
Pentericci, Laura
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Somerville, Rachel S.
Stevenson, Struan
Trump, Jonathan R.
Yung, L. Y. Aaron
Zavala, Jorge A.
contents We present JWST/NIRSpec PRISM observations of three luminous ($M_{\rm UV}<-20$) galaxies at $z\sim10$ observed with the CAPERS Cycle 3 program. These galaxies exhibit extreme UV slopes compared to typical galaxies at $z=10$. Of the three sources, two of them are a close pair (0.22 - arcsec) of blue galaxies at $z=9.800\pm0.003$ and $z=9.808\pm0.002$ with UV slopes of $β=-2.87\pm0.15$ and $β=-2.46\pm0.10$ respectively, selected from PRIMER COSMOS NIRCam imaging. We perform spectrophotometric modeling of the galaxies which suggests extremely young stellar ages and a lack of dust attenuation. For the bluest galaxy, its UV slope also suggests significant Lyman continuum escape. In contrast, the third source (selected from CEERS NIRCam imaging) at $z=9.942\pm0.002$ exhibits a red UV slope with $β=-1.51\pm0.08$. We rule out the possibility of a strong nebular continuum due to the lack of a Balmer jump and find no evidence to support the presence of active galactic nucleus continuum due to a lack of strong UV emission lines and no broad component to H$γ$ or H$β$. Instead, it is most likely that the red UV slope is due to dust-reddening ($A_{\rm V}\simeq0.9$) implying a significant level of dust-obscured star-formation only $\simeq480\, \rm Myr$ after the Big Bang. Under standard assumptions for dust attenuation, EGS-25297 would be the most intrinsically UV-luminous galaxy ($M_{\mathrm{UV,corr}}\simeq -22.4^{+0.7}_{-1.1}$) yet spectroscopically confirmed at $z \sim 10$. This work highlights that luminous galaxies at $z\gtrsim10$ have a diversity of dust properties and that spectroscopy of these galaxies is essential to fully understand star-formation at $z\gtrsim10$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_10518
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Very bright, very blue, and very red: JWST CAPERS analysis of highly luminous galaxies with extreme UV slopes at $\mathbf{z = 10}$
Donnan, Callum T.
Dickinson, Mark
Taylor, Anthony J.
Haro, Pablo Arrabal
Finkelstein, Steven L.
Stanton, Thomas M.
Jung, Intae
Papovich, Casey
Akins, Hollis B.
Koekemoer, Anton M.
McLeod, Derek J.
Napolitano, Lorenzo
Amorín, Ricardo O.
Begley, Ryan
Burgarella, Denis
Carnall, Adam C.
Casey, Caitlin M.
Calabrò, Antonello
Cullen, Fergus
Dunlop, James S.
Ellis, Richard S.
Fernández, Vital
Giavalisco, Mauro
Hirschmann, Michaela
Hu, Weida
Illingworth, Garth
Kartaltepe, Jeyhan S.
Kocevski, Dale D.
Kokorev, Vasily
Leung, Ho-Hin
Lucas, Ray A.
Morales, Alexa M.
McLure, Ross
Pentericci, Laura
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Somerville, Rachel S.
Stevenson, Struan
Trump, Jonathan R.
Yung, L. Y. Aaron
Zavala, Jorge A.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We present JWST/NIRSpec PRISM observations of three luminous ($M_{\rm UV}<-20$) galaxies at $z\sim10$ observed with the CAPERS Cycle 3 program. These galaxies exhibit extreme UV slopes compared to typical galaxies at $z=10$. Of the three sources, two of them are a close pair (0.22 - arcsec) of blue galaxies at $z=9.800\pm0.003$ and $z=9.808\pm0.002$ with UV slopes of $β=-2.87\pm0.15$ and $β=-2.46\pm0.10$ respectively, selected from PRIMER COSMOS NIRCam imaging. We perform spectrophotometric modeling of the galaxies which suggests extremely young stellar ages and a lack of dust attenuation. For the bluest galaxy, its UV slope also suggests significant Lyman continuum escape. In contrast, the third source (selected from CEERS NIRCam imaging) at $z=9.942\pm0.002$ exhibits a red UV slope with $β=-1.51\pm0.08$. We rule out the possibility of a strong nebular continuum due to the lack of a Balmer jump and find no evidence to support the presence of active galactic nucleus continuum due to a lack of strong UV emission lines and no broad component to H$γ$ or H$β$. Instead, it is most likely that the red UV slope is due to dust-reddening ($A_{\rm V}\simeq0.9$) implying a significant level of dust-obscured star-formation only $\simeq480\, \rm Myr$ after the Big Bang. Under standard assumptions for dust attenuation, EGS-25297 would be the most intrinsically UV-luminous galaxy ($M_{\mathrm{UV,corr}}\simeq -22.4^{+0.7}_{-1.1}$) yet spectroscopically confirmed at $z \sim 10$. This work highlights that luminous galaxies at $z\gtrsim10$ have a diversity of dust properties and that spectroscopy of these galaxies is essential to fully understand star-formation at $z\gtrsim10$.
title Very bright, very blue, and very red: JWST CAPERS analysis of highly luminous galaxies with extreme UV slopes at $\mathbf{z = 10}$
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10518