Dwarf satellites of high-z Lyman Break Galaxies: a free lunch for JWST

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that JWST can detect and resolve dwarf satellite galaxies around high-redshift Lyman Break Galaxies, providing new insights into their properties through simulated observations and spectral analysis.

Contribution

It presents a novel simulation-based approach to predict JWST's capability to observe and characterize dwarf satellites of high-z LBGs, including their spectral and morphological features.

Findings

JWST can spatially resolve dwarf satellites from their host LBGs.

Satellites are detectable in planned deep JWST surveys.

Color F200W-F356W effectively identifies starbursting, low-mass satellites.

Abstract

We show that the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to detect dwarf satellites of high-$z$ Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs). To this aim, we use cosmological simulations following the evolution of a typical $M_\star\simeq10^{10}\rm M_\odot$ LBG up to $z\simeq6$, and analyse the observational properties of its five satellite dwarf galaxies ($10^7{\rm M_\odot}<M_\star<10^9{\rm M_\odot}$). Modelling their stellar emission and dust attenuation, we reconstruct their rest-frame UV-optical spectra for $6<z<6.5$. JWST/NIRCam synthetic images show that the satellites can be spatially resolved from their host, and their emission is detectable by planned deep surveys. Moreover, we build synthetic spectral energy distributions and colour-magnitude diagrams for the satellites. We conclude that the color $\rm F200W-F356W$ is a powerful diagnostic tool for understanding their physical properties once they have been identified. For example, $\rm F200W-F356W~\lesssim-0.25$ can be used to identify star-bursting ($\rm SFR\sim5~M_\odot yr^{-1}$), low-mass ($M_\star\lesssim5\times 10^8\rm M_\odot$) systems, with $\sim80\%$ of their stars being young and metal-poor ($\log(Z_\star/Z_\odot) < -0.5$).