UNCOVER/MegaScience: No Evidence of Environmental Quenching in a <i>z </i>∼ 2.6 Protocluster

Abstract Environmental quenching—where interactions with other galaxies and/or the intracluster medium suppress star formation in low-mass galaxies—has been well established as the primary driver behind the formation of the red sequence for low-mass galaxies within clusters at low redshift ( z &lt; 1). However, it remains unclear whether these mechanisms are active at higher redshifts in protocluster environments that are not yet fully virialized. In large part, this regime has remained unexplored due to observational limitations; however, JWST has recently opened a new window into the role of environmental quenching on low-mass (log( M ⋆ / M ⊙ ) &lt; 9.0) galaxies at cosmic noon (2 &lt; z &lt; 3). Here, we leverage the deep imaging and R ∼ 15 spectrophotometry enabled by the 20 band JWST/NIRCam data from the UNCOVER and MegaScience programs to examine environmental quenching in a newly discovered z ≈ 2.58 protocluster. We compare the star formation histories of 19 low-mass quiescent galaxies in the protocluster to a matched sample of 18 in the field and find no significant differences. This similarity extends to galaxy sizes and quenched fractions, which also show no significant differences between the two environments across the full stellar mass range (8.5 &lt; log( M ⋆ / M ⊙ ) ≤ 11.0). This indicates that the protocluster has not yet accelerated quenching relative to the field and is consistent with expectations that z &gt; 2 protoclusters have yet to virialize and develop a dense enough environment required to efficiently quench low-mass galaxies.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Published
2025-08-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/adf7ab
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Scientific Research and Discoveries
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
5.29

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article

UNCOVER/MegaScience: No Evidence of Environmental Quenching in a z ∼ 2.6 Protocluster

Pratika Dayal, Lukas J. Furtak, Rachel Bezanson, Danilo Marchesini et al.
4 citations
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Scientific Research and Discoveries
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article

UNCOVER/MegaScience: No Evidence of Environmental Quenching in a z ∼ 2.6 Protocluster

Pratika Dayal, Lukas J. Furtak, Rachel Bezanson, Danilo Marchesini, Karl Glazebrook, Tim B. Miller, Sam E. Cutler, Richard Pan, Jenny E. Greene, Ivo Labbé, Adam Muzzin, Themiya Nanayakkara, John R. Weaver, Ikki Mitsuhashi, David J. Setton, Robert Feldmann, Joel Leja, Katherine A. Suess, Erica J. Nelson, Gabriel Brammer, Yunchong Zhang, Katherine E. Whitaker, Adi Zitrin, Sedona H. Price, Bingjie Wang
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Abstract Environmental quenching—where interactions with other galaxies and/or the intracluster medium suppress star formation in low-mass galaxies—has been well established as the primary driver behind the formation of the red sequence for low-mass galaxies within clusters at low redshift ( z &lt; 1). However, it remains unclear whether these mechanisms are active at higher redshifts in protocluster environments that are not yet fully virialized. In large part, this regime has remained unexplored due to observational limitations; however, JWST has recently opened a new window into the role of environmental quenching on low-mass (log( M ⋆ / M ⊙ ) &lt; 9.0) galaxies at cosmic noon (2 &lt; z &lt; 3). Here, we leverage the deep imaging and R ∼ 15 spectrophotometry enabled by the 20 band JWST/NIRCam data from the UNCOVER and MegaScience programs to examine environmental quenching in a newly discovered z ≈ 2.58 protocluster. We compare the star formation histories of 19 low-mass quiescent galaxies in the protocluster to a matched sample of 18 in the field and find no significant differences. This similarity extends to galaxy sizes and quenched fractions, which also show no significant differences between the two environments across the full stellar mass range (8.5 &lt; log( M ⋆ / M ⊙ ) ≤ 11.0). This indicates that the protocluster has not yet accelerated quenching relative to the field and is consistent with expectations that z &gt; 2 protoclusters have yet to virialize and develop a dense enough environment required to efficiently quench low-mass galaxies.

The Astrophysical Journal LettersVol. 990(1)
National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, University of Pittsburgh, Space Telescope Science Institute, National Research Foundation, Danmarks Grundforskningsfond, United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation, Center for Research Computing, University of Pittsburgh, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, Pennsylvania State University
Openalex Percentile: Top 4%
Scientific Research and Discoveries
5.29
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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