A warm ultra-luminous infrared galaxy just 600 million years after the Big Bang

TL;DR

This study reports the detection of warm dust in a galaxy at redshift 8.3, revealing significant dust-obscured star formation shortly after the Big Bang, using ALMA and JWST observations.

Contribution

First direct detection of warm dust in a galaxy at z=8.3, demonstrating the presence of dust-obscured star formation in the early universe.

Findings

Galaxy has warm dust at 91 K with a dust mass of 1.4 million solar masses.

Infrared luminosity places the galaxy in the ULIRG regime.

Evidence of spatial separation between dust and stars on sub-200 pc scales.

Abstract

We present an Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Band 9 continuum detection ($3.3 \sigma$) of MACS0416_Y1 that confirms the suspected warm dust (91$^{+62}_{-35}$ K) of this Lyman-Break Galaxy (LBG) at $z = 8.3$ with $\log_{10} M_{\ast}/$M$_{\odot} = 9.0 \pm 0.1$. A modified black-body fit to the ALMA Bands 3 through 9 data of MACS0416_Y1 finds an intrinsic infrared luminosity of 1.0$^{+1.8}_{-0.6} \times{} 10^{12}\ \mathrm{L_{\odot}}$, placing this UV-selected LBG in the regime of Ultra Luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs). Its luminous but modest dust reservoir (1.4$^{+1.3}_{-0.5} \times{} 10^{6}\ \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$) is co-spatial to regions with a UV-continuum slope $\beta_{\rm UV} \approx -1.5$ as seen by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imaging. Although this implies some dust obscuration, the JWST photometry implies less obscured star formation than seen in the complete characterization by ALMA, implying some spatial separation of dust and stars on scales below 200 pc, i.e., smaller than those probed by JWST and ALMA. This source is an extreme example of dust-obscured star formation contributing strongly to the cosmic build-up of stellar mass, which can only be revealed through direct and comprehensive observations in the (sub)mm regime.