Spectroscopic Confirmation of CEERS NIRCam-selected Galaxies at z 8-10

Abstract We present JWST/NIRSpec prism spectroscopy of seven galaxies selected from Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey NIRCam imaging with photometric redshifts z phot > 8. We measure emission line redshifts of z = 7.65 and 8.64 for two galaxies. For two other sources without securely detected emission lines we measure z = 9.77 0.29 + 0.37 and 10.01 0.19 + 0.14 by fitting model spectral templates to the prism data, from which we detect continuum breaks consistent with Ly opacity from a mostly neutral intergalactic medium. The presence of strong breaks and the absence of strong emission lines give high confidence that these two galaxies have redshifts z > 9.6, but the redshift values derived from the breaks alone have large uncertainties given the low spectral resolution and relatively low S/N of the CEERS NIRSpec prism data. The two z 10 sources observed are relatively luminous (M UV < 20), with blue continua (2.3 1.9) and low dust attenuation ( A V 0.15 0.1 + 0.3 ); and at least one of them has a high stellar mass for a galaxy at that redshift ( log ( M / M )

Haro, P. A., Dickinson, M., Finkelstein, S. L., Fujimoto, S., Fernandez, V., Kartaltepe, J. S., ... Zavala, J. A.

Haro, Pablo Arrabal||Dickinson, Mark||Finkelstein, Steven L||Fujimoto, Seiji||Fernandez, Vital||Kartaltepe, Jeyhan S||Jung, Intae||Cole, Justin W||Burgarella, Denis||Chworowsky, Katherine||Hutchison, Taylor A||Morales, Alexa M||Papovich, Casey||Simons, Raymond C||Amorin, Ricardo O||Backhaus, Bren E||Bagley, Micaela B||Bisigello, Laura||Calabro, Antonello||Castellano, Marco||Cleri, Nikko J||Dave, Romeel||Dekel, Avishai||Ferguson, Henry C||Fontana, Adriano||Gawiser, Eric||Giavalisco, Mauro||Harish, Santosh||Hathi, Nimish P||Hirschmann, Michaela||Holwerda, Benne W||Huertas-Company, Marc||Koekemoer, Anton M||Larson, Rebecca L||Lucas, Ray A||Mobasher, Bahram||Perez-Gonzalez, Pablo G||Pirzkal, Nor||Rose, Caitlin||Santini, Paola||Trump, Jonathan R||de la Vega, Alexander||Wang, Xin||Weiner, Benjamin J||Wilkins, Stephen M||Yang, Guang||Yung, LY Aaron||Zavala, Jorge A

Spectroscopic Confirmation of CEERS NIRCam-selected Galaxies at z 8-10 Academic Article