JADES: the chemical enrichment pattern of distant galaxies -- $α$ enhancement, silicon depletion, and iron enhancement
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2025
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| author | Isobe, Yuki Maiolino, Roberto Ji, Xihan D'Eugenio, Francesco Simmonds, Charlotte Scholtz, Jan Juodžbalis, Ignas Saxena, Aayush Witstok, Joris Kobayashi, Chiaki Vanni, Irene Salvadori, Stefania Watanabe, Kuria Monty, Stephanie Belokurov, Vasily Feltre, Anna McClymont, William Tacchella, Sandro Curti, Mirko Übler, Hannah Charlot, Stéphane Bunker, Andrew J. Chevallard, Jacopo Curtis-Lake, Emma Kumari, Nimisha Rinaldi, Pierluigi Robertson, Brant Williams, Christina C. Willott, Chris |
| author_facet | Isobe, Yuki Maiolino, Roberto Ji, Xihan D'Eugenio, Francesco Simmonds, Charlotte Scholtz, Jan Juodžbalis, Ignas Saxena, Aayush Witstok, Joris Kobayashi, Chiaki Vanni, Irene Salvadori, Stefania Watanabe, Kuria Monty, Stephanie Belokurov, Vasily Feltre, Anna McClymont, William Tacchella, Sandro Curti, Mirko Übler, Hannah Charlot, Stéphane Bunker, Andrew J. Chevallard, Jacopo Curtis-Lake, Emma Kumari, Nimisha Rinaldi, Pierluigi Robertson, Brant Williams, Christina C. Willott, Chris |
| contents | We present gas-phase abundances of carbon (C), $α$-elements (O, Ne, Si, and Ar) and iron (Fe) obtained from stacked spectra of high-$z$ star-forming galaxies with the deep Near Infrared Spectrograph medium-resolution data from the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. Our 564 sources at $z=4$--7 have a median stellar mass of $\log(M_{*}/M_{\odot})=8.46$ and a median star-formation rate of $\log(\mathrm{SFR}/M_{\odot}\,\mathrm{yr^{-1}})=0.30$, placing them close to the star-formation main sequence. We find that the stacked spectrum of all our 564 sources has relatively low [C/O]$=-0.70$, moderate [Ne/O]$=-0.09$, and low [Ar/O]$=-0.28$ values at a low gas-phase metallicity of $12+\log(\mathrm{O/H})=7.71$ ($Z\sim 0.1~Z_\odot$), suggesting dominant yields of core-collapse supernovae evolved from massive stars. The detection of a weak SiIII] emission line in our stacked spectrum provides a silicon-to-oxygen abundance ratio of [Si/O]$=-0.63$, which is lower than that of stars in the Milky Way disc and lower than expected by chemical evolution models, suggesting silicon depletion onto dust grains. Likewise, this Si/O value is lower than that we newly derive for two individual $z>6$ galaxies (GN-z11 and RXCJ2248) with negligible dust attenuation. By performing spectral stacking in bins of $M_{*}$, SFR, specific SFR (sSFR), and ultra-violet (UV) continuum slope $β_{\mathrm{UV}}$, we identify [FeIII] line detections in the high-sSFR bin and the blue-$β_{\mathrm{UV}}$ bin, both of which exhibit supersolar Fe/O ratios, while their C/O, Ar/O, and Si/O ratios are comparable to those of the all-sources stack. Our findings support a chemically young gas composition with rapid dust depletion in the general population of high-$z$ star-forming galaxies, while raising the possibility of anomalous, selective Fe/O enhancement at the very early epoch of star formation. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_18055 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | JADES: the chemical enrichment pattern of distant galaxies -- $α$ enhancement, silicon depletion, and iron enhancement Isobe, Yuki Maiolino, Roberto Ji, Xihan D'Eugenio, Francesco Simmonds, Charlotte Scholtz, Jan Juodžbalis, Ignas Saxena, Aayush Witstok, Joris Kobayashi, Chiaki Vanni, Irene Salvadori, Stefania Watanabe, Kuria Monty, Stephanie Belokurov, Vasily Feltre, Anna McClymont, William Tacchella, Sandro Curti, Mirko Übler, Hannah Charlot, Stéphane Bunker, Andrew J. Chevallard, Jacopo Curtis-Lake, Emma Kumari, Nimisha Rinaldi, Pierluigi Robertson, Brant Williams, Christina C. Willott, Chris Astrophysics of Galaxies We present gas-phase abundances of carbon (C), $α$-elements (O, Ne, Si, and Ar) and iron (Fe) obtained from stacked spectra of high-$z$ star-forming galaxies with the deep Near Infrared Spectrograph medium-resolution data from the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. Our 564 sources at $z=4$--7 have a median stellar mass of $\log(M_{*}/M_{\odot})=8.46$ and a median star-formation rate of $\log(\mathrm{SFR}/M_{\odot}\,\mathrm{yr^{-1}})=0.30$, placing them close to the star-formation main sequence. We find that the stacked spectrum of all our 564 sources has relatively low [C/O]$=-0.70$, moderate [Ne/O]$=-0.09$, and low [Ar/O]$=-0.28$ values at a low gas-phase metallicity of $12+\log(\mathrm{O/H})=7.71$ ($Z\sim 0.1~Z_\odot$), suggesting dominant yields of core-collapse supernovae evolved from massive stars. The detection of a weak SiIII] emission line in our stacked spectrum provides a silicon-to-oxygen abundance ratio of [Si/O]$=-0.63$, which is lower than that of stars in the Milky Way disc and lower than expected by chemical evolution models, suggesting silicon depletion onto dust grains. Likewise, this Si/O value is lower than that we newly derive for two individual $z>6$ galaxies (GN-z11 and RXCJ2248) with negligible dust attenuation. By performing spectral stacking in bins of $M_{*}$, SFR, specific SFR (sSFR), and ultra-violet (UV) continuum slope $β_{\mathrm{UV}}$, we identify [FeIII] line detections in the high-sSFR bin and the blue-$β_{\mathrm{UV}}$ bin, both of which exhibit supersolar Fe/O ratios, while their C/O, Ar/O, and Si/O ratios are comparable to those of the all-sources stack. Our findings support a chemically young gas composition with rapid dust depletion in the general population of high-$z$ star-forming galaxies, while raising the possibility of anomalous, selective Fe/O enhancement at the very early epoch of star formation. |
| title | JADES: the chemical enrichment pattern of distant galaxies -- $α$ enhancement, silicon depletion, and iron enhancement |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.18055 |