J/A+A/693/A60 JWST/NIRSpec reference sample (Heintz+, 2025)
The JWST-PRIMAL archival survey. A JWST/NIRSpec reference sample for the
physical properties and Lyman-α absorption and emission of ∼600 galaxies
at z = 5.0 - 13.4.
Heintz K.E., Brammer G.B., Watson D., Oesch P.A., Keating L.C., Hayes M.J.,
Abdurro'uf, Arellano-Cordova K.Z., Carnall A.C., Christiansen C.R.,
Cullen F., Dave R., Dayal P., Ferrara A., Finlator K., Fynbo J.P.U.,
Flury S.R., Gelli V., Gillman S., Gottumukkala R., Gould K., Greve T.R.,
Hardin S.E., Hsiao T.Y.-Y., Hutter A., Jakobsson P., Killi M.,
Khosravaninezhad N., Laursen P., Lee M.M., Magdis G.E., Matthee J.,
Naidu R.P., Narayanan D., Pollock C., Prescott M.K.M., Rusakov V.,
Shuntov M., Sneppen A., Smit R., Tanvir N.R., Terp C., Toft S.,
Valentino F., Vijayan A.P., Weaver J.R., Wise J.H., Witstok J.
<Astron. Astrophys. 693, A60 (2025)>
=2025A&A...693A..60H 2025A&A...693A..60H (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Galaxies ; Redshifts ; Infrared ; Spectroscopy
Keywords: galaxies: evolution - galaxies: formation - galaxies: general -
galaxies: high-redshift - galaxies: ISM - dark ages; reionization -
first stars
Abstract:
One of the surprising early findings with JWST has been the discovery
of a strong "roll-over" or a softening of the absorption edge of
Lyα in a large number of galaxies at z≳6, in addition to
systematic offsets from photometric redshift estimates and fundamental
galaxy scaling relations. This has been interpreted as strong
cumulative damped Lyα absorption (DLA) wings from high column
densities of neutral atomic hydrogen (HI), signifying major gas
accretion events in the formation of these galaxies.
To explore this new phenomenon systematically, we assembled the
JWST/NIRSpec PRImordial gas Mass AssembLy (PRIMAL) legacy survey of
584 galaxies at z=5.0-13.4, designed to study the physical properties
and gas in and around galaxies during the reionization epoch.
We characterized this benchmark sample in full and spectroscopically
derived the galaxy redshifts, metallicities, star formation rates, and
ultraviolet (UV) slopes. We defined a new diagnostic, the Lyα
damping parameter DLyα, to measure and quantify the net effect
of Lyα emission strength, the HI fraction in the intergalactic
medium, or the local HI column density for each source. The
JWST-PRIMAL survey is based on the spectroscopic DAWN JWST Archive
(DJA-Spec). We describe DJA-Spec in this paper, detailing the
reduction methods, the post-processing steps, and basic analysis
tools. All the software, reduced spectra, and spectroscopically
derived quantities and catalogs are made publicly available in
dedicated repositories.
We find that the fraction of galaxies showing strong integrated DLAs
with NHI>1021cm-2 only increases slightly from ∼60% at z∼6
up to ∼65-90% at z>8. Similarly, the prevalence and prominence of
Lyα emission is found to increase with decreasing redshift, in
qualitative agreement with previous observational results. Strong
Lyα emitters (LAEs) are predominantly found to be associated
with low-metallicity and UV faint galaxies. By contrast, strong DLAs
are observed in galaxies with a variety of intrinsic physical
properties, but predominantly at high redshifts and low metallicities.
Our results indicate that strong DLAs likely reflect a particular
early assembly phase of reionization-era galaxies, at which point they
are largely dominated by pristine HI gas accretion. At z=8-10, this
gas gradually cools and forms into stars that ionize their local
surroundings, forming large ionized bubbles and producing strong
observed Lyα emission at z<8.
Description:
The data considered in this work are processed as part of the DAWN
JWST Archive (DJA), an online repository containing reduced images,
photometric catalogs, and spectroscopic data for public JWST data
products (https://dawn-cph.github.io/dja).
We have compiled and systematically characterized 485 sources observed
with JWST/NIRSpec during the reionization epoch, at
z=5.0-13.4, introducing the JWST-PRIMAL archival legacy
survey.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
catalog.dat 661 485 JWST-PRIMAL catalog
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: catalog.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 4 A4 --- ProgID Program ID under which the object was
observed (from FileName)
6- 13 I8 --- SrcID ? Designated MSA source ID (from FileName)
15- 69 A55 --- FileName File name
71- 89 F19.15 deg RAdeg Right ascension (J2000)
91-109 F19.15 deg DEdeg Declination (J2000)
111-119 F9.6 --- zspec Spectroscopic redshift
121-140 F20.16 --- S/N-UV Rest-frame UV signal-to-noise ratio
142-160 F19.15 mag UVMAG Absolute UV (rest-frame ∼1500Å)
magnitude
162-183 F22.15 0.1nm EWO3Hb ? Rest-frame [OIII]+Hβ
equivalent width
185-204 F20.17 --- betaUV ? Rest-frame UV (1250-2600Å)
spectral slope
206-227 E22.20 --- e_betaUV Rest-frame UV (1250-2600Å)
spectral slope error
229-248 F20.15 0.1nm DLya Lyα damping parameter
250-268 F19.16 0.1nm e_DLya Lyα damping parameter error
270-291 F22.18 Msun/yr SFR ? Star formation rate derived from Hβ
(z<10) or [OII] (z>10),
not corrected for dust
293-312 F20.17 Msun/yr e_SFR ? Star formation rate derived from Hβ
(z<10) or [OII] (z>10),
not corrected for dust, error
314-336 E23.17 --- Xiion ? ionizing photon production efficiency
338-359 E22.17 --- e_Xiion ? ionizing photon production efficiency
error
361-382 F22.17 --- O32 ? [OIII]λ5008/[OII]λ3727
line flux ratio
383 A1 --- n_O32 [I] i for infinity
384-407 F24.17 --- e_O32 []? [OIII]λ5008/[OII]λ3727
line flux ratio error
409-421 F13.8 10-23W/m2 OII3727 ? Unresolved [OII] λ3726,3729
doublet line flux
423-433 F11.7 10-23W/m2 e_OII3727 ? Unresolved [OII] λ3726,3729
doublet line flux error
435-446 F12.8 10-23W/m2 NeIII3870 ? Unresolved [NeIII] λ3870 line
flux measurement, except for the highest
redshift sources (z>10)
448-458 F11.7 10-23W/m2 e_NeIII3870 ? Unresolved [NeIII] λ3870 line
flux measurement error
460-473 F14.9 10-23W/m2 HeI3889 ? HeIλ3889 line flux measurement
475-485 F11.7 10-23W/m2 e_HeI3889 ? HeIλ3889 line flux measurement
error
487-500 F14.10 10-23W/m2 Hdelta ? Balmer Hδ line flux
502-511 F10.7 10-23W/m2 e_Hdelta ? Balmer Hδ line flux error
513-526 F14.10 10-23W/m2 Hgamma ? Unresolved Balmer Hγ + auroral
[OIII] λ4363 line flux
measurements, except for the highest
redshift sources (z>9.5)
528-537 F10.7 10-23W/m2 e_Hgamma ? Unresolved Balmer Hγ + auroral
[OIII] λ4363 line flux
measurements error
539-550 F12.7 10-23W/m2 Hbeta ? Balmer Hβ line flux
552-561 F10.7 10-23W/m2 e_Hbeta ? Balmer Hβ line flux error
563-574 F12.7 10-23W/m2 OIII4960 ? [OIII] λ4960 line flux
576-585 F10.7 10-23W/m2 e_OIII4960 ? [OIII] λ4960 line flux error
587-598 F12.7 10-23W/m2 OIII5008 ? [OIII] λ5008 line flux
600-609 F10.7 10-23W/m2 e_OIII5008 ? [OIII] λ5008 line flux error
611-623 F13.7 10-23W/m2 Halpha ? Unresolved Balmer Hα+[NII]
λ6585 line flux
625-635 F11.7 10-23W/m2 e_Halpha ? Unresolved Balmer Hα+[NII]
λ6585 line flux error
637-649 F13.9 10-23W/m2 SII6725 ? Unresolved [SII]
λλ6718,6732 doublet line
flux
651-661 F11.7 10-23W/m2 e_SII6725 ? Unresolved [SII]
λλ6718,6732 doublet line
flux error
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Acknowledgements:
Copied at https://github.com/keheintz/jwst-primal
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 20-May-2025