Probing infrared eXcess to investigate early-Universe dust (PIXIEDust)
ABSTRACT Despite the implied presence of dust through reddened UV emission in high-redshift galaxies, no dust emission has been detected in the (sub)millimetre regime beyond $z > 8.3$. This study combines around 200 h of Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) and Northern Extended Millimetre Array (NOEMA) observations on 10 $z > 8$ galaxies, revealing no significant dust emission down to a $1 \sigma$ depth of 2.0, 2.0, and $1.5 \, \mu$Jy at rest-frame 158, 88 $\mu$m, and across all the data, respectively. This constrains average dust masses to be below $< 10^{5}$ M$_{\odot }$ at $3 \sigma$ and dust-to-stellar mass ratios to be below $3.7 \times {} 10^{-4}$ (assuming $T_{\rm dust} = 50$ K and $\beta _{\rm dust} = 2.0$). Binning by redshift ($8 < z < 9.5$ and $9.5 < z < 15$), UV-continuum slope ($\beta _{\rm UV} \lessgtr -2$), and stellar mass ($\log _{10} M_{\ast }/{\rm {M}_{\odot }} \lessgtr 9$) yields similarly stringent constraints. Combined with other studies, these results are consistent with inefficient dust build-up in the $z > 8$ Universe, likely due to inefficient supernova production, limited interstellar grain growth and/or ejection by outflows. We provide data and tools online to facilitate community-wide high-redshift dust searches.
Authors
- T. Khouri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5680-9525)
- K. K. Knudsen
- Joris Witstok (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7595-121X)
- Jorge A. Zavala (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7051-1100)
- S. Aalto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5828-7660)
- A. Ferrara
- Ilsang Yoon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9163-0064)
- Hanae Inami (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4268-0393)
- Takuya Hashimoto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0898-4038)
- Ikki Mitsuhashi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7300-9450)
- Caitlin M. Casey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0930-6466)
- Jean-Baptiste Jolly
- Stephen Serjeant (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0517-7943)
- Hiddo Algera (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4205-9567)
- Akio Inoue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7779-8677)
- Renske Smit (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8034-7802)
- Laura Sommovigo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2906-2200)
- Clarke J. Esmerian
- Masato Hagimoto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8083-5814)
- Tom J. L. C. Bakx
- Yoichi Tamura
- W. H. T. Vlemmings (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2700-9916)
- Gustav Olander (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4830-9069)
- Stefano Carniani
- Stephen Eales
- Jianhang Chen
- Yoshinobu Fudamoto
- Gunnar Nyman
Institutions
- Hiroshima University (JP)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Planetary Science Institute (US)
- Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica (TW)
- European Southern Observatory (DE)
- Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (US)
- University of Tsukuba (JP)
- Waseda University (JP)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Scuola Normale Superiore (IT)
- Chiba University (JP)
- The Open University (GB)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (DE)
- DAWN Center for Independent Living (US)
- Flatiron Health (United States) (US)
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (JP)
- Flatiron Institute (US)
- Nagoya University (JP)
- Liverpool John Moores University (GB)
- Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
- Cardiff University (GB)
- University of Gothenburg (SE)
- Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2025-12-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf2284
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.15
Funders
- National Research Foundation
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
- Danmarks Grundforskningsfond
- Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science