Adrianne Slyz

Abstract:

The recent launch of JWST has enabled the exciting prospect of detecting the first generation of metal-free, Population III (Pop. III) stars. Determining characteristics that robustly signify Pop. III stars against other possible contaminants represents a key challenge. To this end, we run high-resolution (sub-pc) cosmological radiation hydrodynamics simulations of the region around a dwarf galaxy at z ≥ 10 to predict the emission line signatures of the Pop. III/Pop. II transition. We show that the absence of metal emission lines is a poor diagnostic of Pop. III stars because metal-enriched galaxies can maintain low [O iii] 5007 Å that may be undetectable due to sensitivity limits. Combining spectral hardness probes (e.g. He ii 1640 Å/H α) with metallicity diagnostics is more likely to probe metal-free stars, although contamination from Wolf-Rayet stars, X-ray binaries, or black holes may be important. The hard emission from Pop. III galaxies fades fast due to the short stellar lifetimes of massive stars, which could further inhibit detection. Pop. III stars may be identifiable after they evolve off the main sequence due to the cooling radiation from nebular gas or a supernova remnant; however, these signatures are also short-lived (i.e. few Myr). Contaminants including flickering black holes might confuse this diagnostic. While JWST will provide a unique opportunity to spectroscopically probe the nature of the earliest galaxies, both the short time-scales associated with pristine systems and ambiguities in interpreting emission lines may hinder progress. Special care will be needed before claiming the discovery of systems with pure Pop. III stars.

Abstract:

We set constraints on the dark matter halo mass and concentration of ∼22 000 individual galaxies visible both in H I (from the ALFALFA survey) and optical light (from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey). This is achieved by combining two Bayesian models, one for the H I line width as a function of the stellar and neutral hydrogen mass distributions in a galaxy using kinematic modelling, and the other for the galaxy’s total baryonic mass using the technique of inverse subhalo abundance matching. We hence quantify the constraining power on halo properties of spectroscopic and photometric observations, and assess their consistency. We find good agreement between the two sets of posteriors, although there is a sizeable population of low-line width galaxies that favour significantly smaller dynamical masses than expected from abundance matching (especially for cuspy halo profiles). Abundance matching provides significantly more stringent bounds on halo properties than the H I line width, even with a mass–concentration prior included, although combining the two provides a mean gain of 40 per cent for the sample when fitting an NFW profile. We also use our kinematic posteriors to construct a baryonic mass–halo mass relation, which we find to be near power law, and with a somewhat shallower slope than expected from abundance matching. Our method demonstrates the potential of combining photometric and spectroscopic observations to precisely map out the dark matter distribution at the galaxy scale using upcoming H I surveys such as the SKA.