_version_ 1866918259597508608
author Helton, Jakob M.
Morrison, Jane E.
Hainline, Kevin N.
D'Eugenio, Francesco
Rieke, George H.
Alberts, Stacey
Carniani, Stefano
Leja, Joel
Li, Yijia
Rinaldi, Pierluigi
Scholtz, Jan
Stone, Meredith
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Wu, Zihao
Baker, William M.
Bunker, Andrew J.
Charlot, Stephane
Chevallard, Jacopo
Cleri, Nikko J.
Curti, Mirko
Curtis-Lake, Emma
Egami, Eiichi
Eisenstein, Daniel J.
Jakobsen, Peter
Ji, Zhiyuan
Johnson, Benjamin D.
Kumari, Nimisha
Lin, Xiaojing
Lyu, Jianwei
Maiolino, Roberto
Maseda, Michael
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Rieke, Marcia J.
Robertson, Brant
Saxena, Aayush
Sun, Fengwu
Tacchella, Sandro
Übler, Hannah
Venturi, Giacomo
Williams, Christina C.
Willott, Chris
Witstok, Joris
Zhu, Yongda
author_facet Helton, Jakob M.
Morrison, Jane E.
Hainline, Kevin N.
D'Eugenio, Francesco
Rieke, George H.
Alberts, Stacey
Carniani, Stefano
Leja, Joel
Li, Yijia
Rinaldi, Pierluigi
Scholtz, Jan
Stone, Meredith
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Wu, Zihao
Baker, William M.
Bunker, Andrew J.
Charlot, Stephane
Chevallard, Jacopo
Cleri, Nikko J.
Curti, Mirko
Curtis-Lake, Emma
Egami, Eiichi
Eisenstein, Daniel J.
Jakobsen, Peter
Ji, Zhiyuan
Johnson, Benjamin D.
Kumari, Nimisha
Lin, Xiaojing
Lyu, Jianwei
Maiolino, Roberto
Maseda, Michael
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Rieke, Marcia J.
Robertson, Brant
Saxena, Aayush
Sun, Fengwu
Tacchella, Sandro
Übler, Hannah
Venturi, Giacomo
Williams, Christina C.
Willott, Chris
Witstok, Joris
Zhu, Yongda
contents JWST has discovered an early period of galaxy formation that was more vigorous than expected, which has challenged our understanding of the early Universe. In this work, we present the longest spectroscopic integration ever acquired by JWST/MIRI. This spectrum covers the brightest rest-frame optical nebular emission lines for the luminous galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 at $z > 14$. Most notably, we detect $[\mathrm{OIII}] λλ4959,5007$ at $\approx 11 σ$ and $\mathrm{H}α$ at $\approx 4 σ$ with these ultra-deep observations. These lines reveal that JADES-GS-z14-0 has low dust attenuation with a recent star-formation rate of $\mathrm{SFR} \approx 10 \pm 2\ M_{\odot} / \mathrm{yr}$, star-formation rate surface density of $Σ_{\mathrm{SFR}} \approx 23 \pm 5\ M_{\odot}/\mathrm{yr}/\mathrm{kpc}^{2}$, and ionizing photon production efficiency of $ξ_{\mathrm{ion}} \approx 10^{25.3 \pm 0.1}\ \mathrm{Hz/erg}$. Using standard strong-line diagnostics, we infer a gas-phase oxygen abundance of $[\mathrm{O/H}] \approx -1.1 \pm 0.4$ ($\approx 10\%\ Z_{\odot}$), carbon-to-oxygen ratio of $[\mathrm{C/O}] \approx -0.4 \pm 0.4$, ionization parameter of $\mathrm{log}_{10}(U) \gtrsim -2.4$, and density of $n_{\mathrm{H}} \approx 720 \pm 210\ \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$. Using detailed photoionization modeling, we instead derive $[\mathrm{O/H}] \approx -0.3_{-0.4}^{+0.4}$ ($\approx 50\%\ Z_{\odot}$) and $\mathrm{log}_{10}(U) \approx -1.5_{-0.4}^{+0.3}$. The inferred properties of JADES-GS-z14-0 are similar to those measured for similarly luminous galaxies at $z > 10$ with previous MIRI/Spectroscopy, such as GHZ2/GLASSz12, GN-z11, and MACS0647-JD1. Existing simulations are unable to reproduce the empirical and inferred properties of JADES-GS-z14-0. This work demonstrates an important step toward understanding the formation of the first stars and heavy elements in the Universe. [Abridged]
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_19695
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ionizing Photon Production Efficiencies and Chemical Abundances at Cosmic Dawn Revealed by Ultra-Deep Rest-Frame Optical Spectroscopy of JADES-GS-z14-0
Helton, Jakob M.
Morrison, Jane E.
Hainline, Kevin N.
D'Eugenio, Francesco
Rieke, George H.
Alberts, Stacey
Carniani, Stefano
Leja, Joel
Li, Yijia
Rinaldi, Pierluigi
Scholtz, Jan
Stone, Meredith
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Wu, Zihao
Baker, William M.
Bunker, Andrew J.
Charlot, Stephane
Chevallard, Jacopo
Cleri, Nikko J.
Curti, Mirko
Curtis-Lake, Emma
Egami, Eiichi
Eisenstein, Daniel J.
Jakobsen, Peter
Ji, Zhiyuan
Johnson, Benjamin D.
Kumari, Nimisha
Lin, Xiaojing
Lyu, Jianwei
Maiolino, Roberto
Maseda, Michael
Pérez-González, Pablo G.
Rieke, Marcia J.
Robertson, Brant
Saxena, Aayush
Sun, Fengwu
Tacchella, Sandro
Übler, Hannah
Venturi, Giacomo
Williams, Christina C.
Willott, Chris
Witstok, Joris
Zhu, Yongda
Astrophysics of Galaxies
JWST has discovered an early period of galaxy formation that was more vigorous than expected, which has challenged our understanding of the early Universe. In this work, we present the longest spectroscopic integration ever acquired by JWST/MIRI. This spectrum covers the brightest rest-frame optical nebular emission lines for the luminous galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 at $z > 14$. Most notably, we detect $[\mathrm{OIII}] λλ4959,5007$ at $\approx 11 σ$ and $\mathrm{H}α$ at $\approx 4 σ$ with these ultra-deep observations. These lines reveal that JADES-GS-z14-0 has low dust attenuation with a recent star-formation rate of $\mathrm{SFR} \approx 10 \pm 2\ M_{\odot} / \mathrm{yr}$, star-formation rate surface density of $Σ_{\mathrm{SFR}} \approx 23 \pm 5\ M_{\odot}/\mathrm{yr}/\mathrm{kpc}^{2}$, and ionizing photon production efficiency of $ξ_{\mathrm{ion}} \approx 10^{25.3 \pm 0.1}\ \mathrm{Hz/erg}$. Using standard strong-line diagnostics, we infer a gas-phase oxygen abundance of $[\mathrm{O/H}] \approx -1.1 \pm 0.4$ ($\approx 10\%\ Z_{\odot}$), carbon-to-oxygen ratio of $[\mathrm{C/O}] \approx -0.4 \pm 0.4$, ionization parameter of $\mathrm{log}_{10}(U) \gtrsim -2.4$, and density of $n_{\mathrm{H}} \approx 720 \pm 210\ \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$. Using detailed photoionization modeling, we instead derive $[\mathrm{O/H}] \approx -0.3_{-0.4}^{+0.4}$ ($\approx 50\%\ Z_{\odot}$) and $\mathrm{log}_{10}(U) \approx -1.5_{-0.4}^{+0.3}$. The inferred properties of JADES-GS-z14-0 are similar to those measured for similarly luminous galaxies at $z > 10$ with previous MIRI/Spectroscopy, such as GHZ2/GLASSz12, GN-z11, and MACS0647-JD1. Existing simulations are unable to reproduce the empirical and inferred properties of JADES-GS-z14-0. This work demonstrates an important step toward understanding the formation of the first stars and heavy elements in the Universe. [Abridged]
title Ionizing Photon Production Efficiencies and Chemical Abundances at Cosmic Dawn Revealed by Ultra-Deep Rest-Frame Optical Spectroscopy of JADES-GS-z14-0
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19695