Affiliation: Institute of Science and Technology Austria

Contribution: Poster

Title: Robust measurements of the galaxy star formation rate density at 3 < z < 5 with JWST/NIRCam grism surveys

Abstract: Star formation rates (SFR) of galaxies are key to understanding galaxy formation and evolution across cosmic time. However, measuring the SFR in the early Universe (z > 3) has long been a major challenge as most sensitive results relied on the rest-frame UV continuum intensity, which is subject to high uncertainties in dust attenuation. With the advent of JWST, this situation has changed dramatically since we are now able to measure the SFR among galaxies at z > 3 from the rest-frame optical spectroscopy. In particular, we can obtain such measurements from the Hydrogen-α (Hα) line that is much less sensitive to dust attenuation compared to the UV continuum. Here, I will present the SFR measurements for a large sample of ~500 Hα emitters spanning SFRs of ~0.5-500 M⊙/yr at 3 < z < 5 from the JWST NIRCam/grism survey “All the Little Things” (ALT; PIs: Matthee & Naidu). I will combine these observations with other JWST Cycle 1 & 2 NIRCam/grism surveys (such as EIGER) totalling ~180hrs of the wide-field slitless spectroscopic (WFSS) data over 8 independent fields, thus obtaining robust statistics on the field-to-field variance of the Hα SFR density. The resulting SFR densities will be compared with the earlier measurements predominantly based on the UV emission of photometrically selected galaxies, as well as with recent hydrodynamical simulations. In addition, I will outline some other major science cases that are being addressed with the ALT survey, including the reionization budget, the abundance of faint AGN and environments at high redshifts.

This contribution can be found in the Poster Hall.