PRIMER & JADES reveal an abundance of massive quiescent galaxies at 2 < z < 5
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2025
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| author | Stevenson, Struan D. Carnall, Adam C. Leung, Ho-Hin Taylor, Elizabeth Cullen, Fergus Dunlop, James S. McLeod, Derek J. McLure, Ross J. Begley, Ryan Arellano-Córdova, Karla Z. Barrufet, Laia Bondestam, Cecilia Donnan, Callum T. Ellis, Richard S. Grogin, Norman A. Koekemoer, Anton M. Liu, Feng-Yuan Pérez-González, Pablo G. Rowlands, Kate Sanders, Ryan L. Scholte, Dirk Shapley, Alice E. Skarbinski, Maya Stanton, Thomas M. Wild, Vivienne |
| author_facet | Stevenson, Struan D. Carnall, Adam C. Leung, Ho-Hin Taylor, Elizabeth Cullen, Fergus Dunlop, James S. McLeod, Derek J. McLure, Ross J. Begley, Ryan Arellano-Córdova, Karla Z. Barrufet, Laia Bondestam, Cecilia Donnan, Callum T. Ellis, Richard S. Grogin, Norman A. Koekemoer, Anton M. Liu, Feng-Yuan Pérez-González, Pablo G. Rowlands, Kate Sanders, Ryan L. Scholte, Dirk Shapley, Alice E. Skarbinski, Maya Stanton, Thomas M. Wild, Vivienne |
| contents | We select a mass-complete sample of 225 quiescent galaxies at $z>2$ with $M_* > 10^{10}\ \mathrm{M}_\odot$ from PRIMER and JADES photometry spanning a total area of $\simeq320$ sq. arcmin. We restrict our analysis to only area with optical coverage in three $HST$ ACS filters, and provide evidence that this is important for selecting the most complete and clean samples of $z>2$ massive quiescent galaxy candidates. We investigate the contamination in our sample via $JWST$ NIRSpec spectroscopic validation, $Chandra$ X-ray imaging, and ALMA interferometry, calculating a modest total contamination fraction of $12.9_{-3.1}^{+4.0}$ per cent. The removal of $HST$ data increases star-forming galaxy contamination by $\simeq10$ per cent and results in a $\simeq20$ per cent loss of candidates recovered from $HST$+$JWST$ data combined. We calculate massive quiescent galaxy number densities at $2<z<5$, finding values three times larger than pre-$JWST$ estimates, but generally in agreement with more-recent and larger-area $JWST$ studies. In comparison with galaxy evolution simulations, we find that most can now reproduce the observed massive quiescent galaxy number density at $2<z<3$, however they still increasingly fall short at $z>3$, with discrepancies of up to $\simeq 1$ dex. We place 14 of our $z>3$ massive quiescent galaxies on the BPT and WHaN diagrams using medium-resolution spectroscopic data from the EXCELS survey. We find a very high incidence of faint AGN in our sample, at a level of $\simeq50$ per cent, consistent with recent results at cosmic noon. This is interesting in the context of maintenance-mode feedback, which is invoked in many simulations to prevent quenched galaxies from re-igniting star formation. To properly characterise the evolution of early massive quiescent galaxies, greater coverage in optical filters and significantly larger spectroscopic samples will be required. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_06913 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | PRIMER & JADES reveal an abundance of massive quiescent galaxies at 2 < z < 5 Stevenson, Struan D. Carnall, Adam C. Leung, Ho-Hin Taylor, Elizabeth Cullen, Fergus Dunlop, James S. McLeod, Derek J. McLure, Ross J. Begley, Ryan Arellano-Córdova, Karla Z. Barrufet, Laia Bondestam, Cecilia Donnan, Callum T. Ellis, Richard S. Grogin, Norman A. Koekemoer, Anton M. Liu, Feng-Yuan Pérez-González, Pablo G. Rowlands, Kate Sanders, Ryan L. Scholte, Dirk Shapley, Alice E. Skarbinski, Maya Stanton, Thomas M. Wild, Vivienne Astrophysics of Galaxies We select a mass-complete sample of 225 quiescent galaxies at $z>2$ with $M_* > 10^{10}\ \mathrm{M}_\odot$ from PRIMER and JADES photometry spanning a total area of $\simeq320$ sq. arcmin. We restrict our analysis to only area with optical coverage in three $HST$ ACS filters, and provide evidence that this is important for selecting the most complete and clean samples of $z>2$ massive quiescent galaxy candidates. We investigate the contamination in our sample via $JWST$ NIRSpec spectroscopic validation, $Chandra$ X-ray imaging, and ALMA interferometry, calculating a modest total contamination fraction of $12.9_{-3.1}^{+4.0}$ per cent. The removal of $HST$ data increases star-forming galaxy contamination by $\simeq10$ per cent and results in a $\simeq20$ per cent loss of candidates recovered from $HST$+$JWST$ data combined. We calculate massive quiescent galaxy number densities at $2<z<5$, finding values three times larger than pre-$JWST$ estimates, but generally in agreement with more-recent and larger-area $JWST$ studies. In comparison with galaxy evolution simulations, we find that most can now reproduce the observed massive quiescent galaxy number density at $2<z<3$, however they still increasingly fall short at $z>3$, with discrepancies of up to $\simeq 1$ dex. We place 14 of our $z>3$ massive quiescent galaxies on the BPT and WHaN diagrams using medium-resolution spectroscopic data from the EXCELS survey. We find a very high incidence of faint AGN in our sample, at a level of $\simeq50$ per cent, consistent with recent results at cosmic noon. This is interesting in the context of maintenance-mode feedback, which is invoked in many simulations to prevent quenched galaxies from re-igniting star formation. To properly characterise the evolution of early massive quiescent galaxies, greater coverage in optical filters and significantly larger spectroscopic samples will be required. |
| title | PRIMER & JADES reveal an abundance of massive quiescent galaxies at 2 < z < 5 |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06913 |