To High Redshift and Low Mass: Exploring the Emergence of Quenched Galaxies and Their Environments at 3 < z < 6 in the Ultra-deep JADES MIRI F770W Parallel
Parlanti, Eleonora; Carniani, Stefano; D'Eugenio, Francesco; Bunker, Andrew J.; Maiolino, Roberto; Willott, Chris J.; Johnson, Benjamin D.; Ji, Zhiyuan; Shivaei, Irene; Lyu, Jianwei; Curtis-Lake, Emma; Charlot, Stephane; de Graaff, Anna; Alberts, Stacey; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Hausen, Ryan; Rieke, George; Robertson, Brant E.; Tacchella, Sandro; Williams, Christina C.; Willmer, Christopher N. A.; Baker, William M.; Helton, Jakob M.; Suess, Katherine A.; Hainline, Kevin N.; Rieke, Marcia J.; Bonaventura, Nina; Sun, Yang
United States, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Canada
Abstract
We present the robust selection of high-redshift quiescent galaxies (QG) and poststarburst (PSB) galaxies using ultra-deep NIRCam and MIRI imaging from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). At 3 < z < 6, MIRI 7.7 μm imaging provides rest-frame J band, which is commonly used to break the degeneracy between old stellar populations and dust attenuation at lower redshifts. We identify 23 passively evolving galaxies in UVJ color space in a mass-limited (log M ⋆/M ⊙ ≥ 8.5) sample over 8.8 arcmin2. An evaluation of the contribution of the 7.7 μm shows that JADES-like NIRCam coverage (9+ photometric bands) can compensate for lacking the J band at these redshifts; however, more limited three-band selections perform better with MIRI. Our sample is characterized by rapid quenching timescales (∼100–600 Myr) with formation redshifts z f ≲ 9 and includes a potential record-holding massive QG at