JADES: the chemical enrichment pattern of distant galaxies – α enhancement, silicon depletion, and iron enhancement
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 547:3 (2026) stag123
Abstract:
We present gas-phase abundances of carbon (C), -elements (O, Ne, Si, and Ar), and iron (Fe) obtained from stacked spectra of high-z star-forming galaxies with the deep Near Infrared Spectrograph medium-resolution data from the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. Our 564 sources at –7 have a median stellar mass of and a median star-formation rate of , placing them close to the star-formation main sequence. We find that the stacked spectrum of all our 564 sources has relatively low , moderate , and low values at a low gas-phase metallicity of (), suggesting dominant yields of core-collapse supernovae evolved from massive stars. The detection of a weak [Si iii] emission line in our stacked spectrum provides a silicon-to-oxygen abundance ratio of , which is lower than that of stars in the Milky Way disc and lower than expected by chemical evolution models, suggesting silicon depletion on to dust grains. Likewise, this Si/O value is lower than that we newly derive for two individual galaxies (GN-z11 and RXCJ2248) with negligible dust attenuation. By performing spectral stacking in bins of , star-formation rate (SFR), specific SFR (sSFR), and ultraviolet continuum slope , we identify [Fe iii] line detections in the high-sSFR bin and the blue- bin, both of which exhibit supersolar Fe/O ratios, while their C/O, Ar/O, and Si/O ratios are comparable to those of the all-sources stack. Our findings support a chemically young gas composition with rapid dust depletion in the general population of high-z star-forming galaxies, while raising the possibility of anomalous, selective Fe/O enhancement at the very early epoch of star formation.On the origins of oxygen: ALMA and JWST characterise the multi-phase, metal-enriched, star-bursting medium within a ‘normal’ z > 11 galaxy
The Open Journal of Astrophysics Maynooth University 9 (2026)
Abstract:
The unexpectedly high abundance of galaxies at revealed by JWST has sparked a debate on the nature of early galaxies and the physical mechanisms regulating their formation. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has begun to provide vital insights on their gas and dust content, but so far only for extreme ‘blue monsters’. Here we present new, deep ALMA observations of JADES-GS-z11-0, a more typical (sub- ) galaxy that bridges the discovery space of JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope. These data confirm the presence of the [O III] 88 m line at significance, precisely at the redshift of several faint emission lines previously seen with JWST/NIRSpec, while the underlying dust continuum remains undetected ( ), implying an obscured star formation rate (SFR) of and dust mass of (all ). The accurate ALMA redshift of ( refined over NIRSpec) helps confirm that redshifts measured purely from the Lyman- break, even spectroscopically, should properly take into account the effects of potential damped Lyman- absorption (DLA) systems to avoid systematic overestimates of up to . The [O III] 88 m luminosity of , meanwhile, agrees well with the scaling relation for local metal-poor dwarfs given the SFR measured by NIRCam, NIRSpec, and MIRI. The spatially resolved MIRI and ALMA emission also underscores that JADES-GS-z11-0 is likely to consist of two low-mass components that are undergoing strong bursts of star formation yet are already pre-enriched in oxygen ( solar), only 400 Myr after the Big Bang.The JADES Origins Field: A New JWST Deep Field in the JADES Second NIRCam Data Release
The Astrophysical Journal: Supplement Series American Astronomical Society 281:2 (2025) 50
Abstract:
We summarize the properties and initial data release of the JADES Origins Field (JOF), the longest single pointing yet imaged with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This field falls within the GOODS-S region about 8′ southwest of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), where it was formed initially in Cycle 1 as a parallel field of HUDF spectroscopic observations within the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). This imaging was greatly extended in Cycle 2 program 3215, which observed the JOF for 5 days in six medium-band filters, seeking robust candidates for z > 15 galaxies. This program also includes ultradeep parallel NIRSpec spectroscopy (up to 91 hr on source, summing over the dispersion modes) on the HUDF. Cycle 3 observations from program 4540 added 20 hr of NIRCam slitless spectroscopy and F070W imaging to the JOF. With these three campaigns, the JOF was observed for 380 open-shutter hours with NIRCam using 15 imaging filters and two grism bandpasses. Further, parts of the JOF have deep 43 hr MIRI observations in F770W. Taken together, the JOF is one of the most compelling deep fields available with JWST and a powerful window into the early Universe. This paper presents the second data release from JADES, featuring the imaging and catalogs from the year 1 JOF observations.Cloudy-Maraston: integrating nebular continuum and line emission with the Maraston stellar population synthesis models
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 545:2 (2025) staf1866
Abstract:
The James Webb Space Telescope has ushered in an era of abundant high-redshift observations of young stellar populations characterized by strong emission lines, motivating us to integrate nebular emission into the new Maraston stellar population model which incorporates the latest Geneva stellar evolutionary tracks for massive stars with rotation. We use the photoionization code Cloudy to obtain the emergent nebular continuum and line emission for a range of modelling parameters, then compare our results to observations on various emission line diagnostic diagrams. We carry out a detailed comparison with several other models in the literature assuming different input physics, including modified prescriptions for stellar evolution and the inclusion of binary stars, and find close agreement in the H , H , [N ii], and [S ii] luminosities between the models. However, we find significant differences in lines with high ionization energies, such as He ii1640 and [O iii], due to large variations in the hard ionizing photon production rates. The models differ by a maximum of , where these differences are mostly caused by the assumed stellar rotation and effective temperatures for the Wolf Rayet phase. Interestingly, rotation and uncorrected effective temperatures in our single star population models alone generate [O iii] ionizing photon production rates higher than models including binary stars with ages between 1 to 6 Myr. These differences highlight the dependence of derived properties from SED fitting on the assumed model, as well as the sensitivity of predictions from cosmological simulations.MEGATRON: the environments of Population III stars at Cosmic Dawn and their connection to present day galaxies
(2025)