Pith. sign in

REVIEW 7 cited by

Schrodinger's Galaxy Candidate: Puzzlingly Luminous at $z\approx17$, or Dusty/Quenched at $z\approx5$?

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2208.02794 v1 pith:HC7V3DAR submitted 2022-08-04 astro-ph.GA

classification astro-ph.GA
keywords galaxyapprox5ceers-1749dustyearlyluminousphotometryredshift
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
0 comments
abstract

$JWST$'s first glimpse of the $z>10$ Universe has yielded a surprising abundance of luminous galaxy candidates. Here we present the most extreme of these systems: CEERS-1749. Based on $0.6-5\mu$m photometry, this strikingly luminous ($\approx$26 mag) galaxy appears to lie at $z\approx17$. This would make it an $M_{\rm{UV}}\approx-22$, $M_{\rm{\star}}\approx5\times10^{9}M_{\rm{\odot}}$ system that formed a mere $\sim220$ Myrs after the Big Bang. The implied number density of this galaxy and its analogues challenges virtually every early galaxy evolution model that assumes $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. However, there is strong environmental evidence supporting a secondary redshift solution of $z\approx5$: all three of the galaxy's nearest neighbors at $<2.5$" have photometric redshifts of $z\approx5$. Further, we show that CEERS-1749 may lie in a $z\approx5$ protocluster that is $\gtrsim5\times$ overdense compared to the field. Intense line emission at $z\approx5$ from a quiescent galaxy harboring ionized gas, or from a dusty starburst, may provide satisfactory explanations for CEERS-1749's photometry. The emission lines at $z\approx5$ conspire to boost the $>2\mu$m photometry, producing an apparent blue slope as well as a strong break in the SED. Such a perfectly disguised contaminant is possible only in a narrow redshift window ($\Delta z\lesssim0.1$), implying that the permitted volume for such interlopers may not be a major concern for $z>10$ searches, particularly when medium-bands are deployed. If CEERS-1749 is confirmed to lie at $z\approx5$, it will be the highest-redshift quiescent galaxy, or one of the lowest mass dusty galaxies of the early Universe detected to-date. Both redshift solutions of this intriguing galaxy hold the potential to challenge existing models of early galaxy evolution, making spectroscopic follow-up of this source critical.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 7 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. OpenAlex reports about 37 citations worldwide. Full citation record

  1. MINERVA: A NIRCam Medium Band and MIRI Imaging Survey to Unlock the Hidden Gems of the Distant Universe

    astro-ph.GA 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    The MINERVA survey will expand JWST medium-band imaging area by about 7 times and is forecast to cut photometric-redshift scatter and outlier fractions by factors of 3.7 and 2.6.

  2. Exploring Cosmic Dawn with PANORAMIC I: The Bright End of the UVLF at $z\sim9 -17$

    astro-ph.GA 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Bright galaxy number densities at z~10 match previous JWST results, but are lower at z~13, and the new z~17 upper limits imply a drop of at least a factor ~50 in UV luminosity density from z~10 to z~17.

  3. Multi-fidelity emulator for large-scale 21 cm lightcone images: a few-shot transfer learning approach with generative adversarial network

    astro-ph.IM 2025-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Few-shot transfer learning lets a GAN trained on small 21 cm simulations emulate large-scale lightcone images with only 80 large-box simulations, at percent-level small-scale accuracy and tens-of-percent large-scale accuracy.

  4. Synergising semi-analytical models and hydrodynamical simulations to interpret JWST data from the first billion years

    astro-ph.GA 2025-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A semi-analytic model seeded with simulation-derived star formation rules reproduces JWST's bright galaxies at z>11 via a top-heavy IMF or boosted star formation, and finds low-mass galaxies drove reionisation.

  5. Dark Secrets of Baryons: Illuminating Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions with JWST

    hep-ph 2025-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    JWST ultraviolet luminosity function data currently provide the strongest upper limits on velocity-dependent (∝v^{-2}) dark matter–proton scattering for sub-GeV dark matter.

  6. Dissecting the massive pristine, neutral gas reservoir of a remarkably bright galaxy at z = 14.179

    astro-ph.GA 2025-02 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    JADES-GS-z14-0 at z=14.179 contains a neutral hydrogen reservoir of about 10^9.8 solar masses, implying a gas fraction above 90 percent.

  7. Evolution of Size, Mass, and Density of Galaxies Since Cosmic Dawn

    physics.gen-ph 2025-10 reject novelty 4.0 of 10

    Under the author's CCC+TL cosmology, galaxy effective radii are larger by roughly (1+z)^0.93, reducing the inferred density and mass of early galaxies.

Pith tools