Efficient formation of a massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.9
Within the established framework of structure formation, galaxies start as systems of low stellar mass and gradually grow into far more massive galaxies. The existence of massive galaxies in the first billion years of the Universe, as suggested by recent observations, seems to challenge this model, as such galaxies would require highly efficient conversion of baryons into stars. An even greater challenge in this epoch is the existence of massive galaxies that have already ceased forming stars. However, robust detections of early massive quiescent galaxies have been challenging due to the coarse wavelength sampling of photometric surveys. Here we report the spectroscopic confirmation with the James Webb Space Telescope of the quiescent galaxy RUBIES-EGS-QG-1 at redshift <i>z</i> = 4.90, 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. Deep stellar absorption features in the spectrum reveal that the stellar mass of the galaxy of 10<sup>11</sup> <i>M</i> <sub>⊙</sub> formed in a short 200 Myr burst of star formation, after which star formation activity dropped rapidly and persistently. According to current galaxy formation models, systems with such rapid stellar mass growth and early quenching are too rare to plausibly occur in the small area probed spectroscopically with JWST. Instead, the discovery of RUBIES-EGS-QG-1 implies that early massive quiescent galaxies can be quenched earlier or exhaust gas available for star formation more efficiently than assumed at present.
Authors
- Ian McConachie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2446-8770)
- Francesco Valentino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6477-4011)
- Marijn Franx (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8871-3026)
- Jorryt Matthee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2871-127X)
- Rachel Bezanson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5063-8254)
- Sam E. Cutler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7031-2865)
- Hans‐Walter Rix (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4996-9069)
- Rohan P. Naidu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3997-5705)
- Jenny E. Greene (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5612-3427)
- Ivo Labbé (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2057-5376)
- David J. Setton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4075-7393)
- Leindert Boogaard (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3952-8588)
- Christina C. Williams (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2919-7495)
- Joel Leja (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6755-1315)
- Katherine A. Suess (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1714-1905)
- Nikko J. Cleri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7151-009X)
- Pascal A. Oesch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5851-6649)
- Gabriel Brammer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2680-005X)
- Michael V. Maseda (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0695-4414)
- Katherine E. Whitaker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7160-3632)
- Sedona H. Price (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0108-4176)
- Andrea Weibel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8928-4465)
- Anna de Graaff (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2380-9801)
- Michaela Hirschmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3301-3321)
- G. De Lucia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6220-9104)
- Bingjie Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9269-5046)
Institutions
- University of California, Riverside (US)
- University of Geneva (CH)
- Leiden University (NL)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- European Southern Observatory (DE)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Institute of Science and Technology Austria (AT)
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Princeton University (US)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- Trieste Astronomical Observatory (IT)
- Mitchell Institute (US)
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE)
- NSF NOIRLab (US)
- Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (CH)
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
- Swinburne University of Technology (AU)
- Texas A&M University (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Astronomy
- Published
- 2024-11-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02424-3
- Citations
- 80
- Primary Topic
- Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 26.19
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Space Telescope Science Institute
- National Research Foundation
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- Danmarks Grundforskningsfond
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
- Staatssekretariat für Bildung, Forschung und Innovation