Dust-free starburst galaxies at redshifts $z>10$

TL;DR

This paper investigates how early galaxies at redshifts greater than 10 can appear dust-free due to violent events that clear dust, explaining their high UV luminosity and lack of dust attenuation.

Contribution

The study introduces a 3D numerical model demonstrating that energetic star formation can temporarily clear dust from early galaxies, accounting for observations at high redshifts.

Findings

Star formation energetics can clear dust in 20-25 Myr.

Dust clearing explains the UV luminosity function consistency at high redshifts.

Dust obscuration reappears within 5-8 Myr after supernovae events.

Abstract

One of the most distant galaxies GN-z11 was formed when the Universe was $\le$ 400 Myr old, and it displays a burst-like star formation rate $\sim 25~M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ with a metallicity $Z\sim 0.2\pm 0.1Z_\odot$. It resembles $z=2-3$ galaxies (at ``cosmic noon") except for the fact that the measured reddening $E(B-V)=0.01\pm 0.01$ indicates the presence of little or no dust. This marked absence of dust hints towards violent dynamical events that destroy or evacuate dust along with gas out of the galaxy on a relatively short time scale and make it transparent. We apply a 3D numerical model to infer possible physical characteristics of these events. We demonstrate that the energetics of the observed star formation rate is sufficient to tear apart the dusty veil on time scales of $20-25$ Myr. This can explain the apparent lack of evolution of UV luminosity function of galaxies between and $z\ge 10$ and $z\sim 7$, by compensating for the lower galaxy masses at higher redshift by the absence of dust. We show, however, that this is a temporary phenomenon and soon after the last of the supernovae explosions have taken place, the expanding shell shrinks and obscures the galaxy on time scales of $\approx 5-8$ Myr.