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We present JWST and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) imaging for the lensing system SPT0418−47, which includes a strongly lensed, dusty, star-forming galaxy at redshift z = 4.225 and an associated multiply imaged companion. The JWST NIRCam and MIRI imaging observations presented in this paper were acquired as part of the Early Release Science program Targeting Extremely Magnified Panchromatic Lensed Arcs and Their Extended Star formation (TEMPLATES). This data set provides robust mutiwavelength detections of stellar light in both the main (SPT0418A) and companion (SPT0418B) galaxies, while the ALMA detection of [C ii ] emission confirms that SPT0418B lies at the same redshift as SPT0418A. We infer that the projected physical separation of the two galaxies is 4.42 ± 0.05 kpc. We derive total magnifications of μ = 29 ± 1 and μ = 4.1 ± 0.7 for SPT0418A and SPT0418B, respectively. We use both prospector and cigale to derive stellar masses. We find that SPT0418A has a stellar mass of M * = 3.4 − 0.6 + 1.1 × 10 10 M ⊙ from prospector or M * = 1.5 ± 0.3 × 1010 M ⊙ from cigale. The stellar mass ratio of SPT0418A and SPT0418B is roughly between 4 and 7 ( 4.2 − 1.6 + 1.9 for prospector and 7.5 ± 3.7 for cigale). We see evidence of extended structure associated with SPT0418A that is suggestive of a tidal feature. These features, along with the close projected proximity, imply that the system is interacting. Interestingly, the star formation rates and stellar masses of both galaxies are consistent with the main sequence of star-forming galaxies at this epoch, indicating that this ongoing interaction has not noticeably elevated the star formation levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tidal streams and stellar shells are naturally formed in galaxy interactions and mergers. The Giant Stellar Stream (GSS), the North-East (NE), and Western (W) stellar shelves observed in Andromeda Galaxy (M31) are examples of these structures and were formed through the merger of M31 and a satellite galaxy. Recent observational papers have provided strong evidence that the shells and GSS originate from a single progenitor. In this paper, we investigate the formation of these two stellar shelves and the detailed nature of their relationship to the GSS. We present numerical simulations of tidal disruption of a satellite galaxy assuming that it is a progenitor of the GSS and the shell system. We represent the progenitor as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy with the stellar mass of 109 M⊙ and evolve its merger with M31 for 3 Gyr to reproduce the chemodynamical properties of the NE and W shelves. We find that an initial metallicity of the progenitor with a negative radial gradient of ΔFeH  = −0.3 ± 0.2 successfully reproduces observed metallicities of the NE, W shelves, and the GSS, showing that all these structures can originate from the same merger event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is crucial for a deeper understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies in the Universe to study stellar mass (M *) and star formation rate (SFR). Traditionally, astronomers infer the properties of galaxies from spectra, which are highly informative, but expensive and hard to be obtained. Fortunately, modern sky surveys obtained a vast amount of high-spatial-resolution photometric images. The photometric images are obtained relatively economically than spectra, and it is very helpful for related studies if M * and SFR can be estimated from photometric images. Therefore, this paper conducted some preliminary researches and explorations on this regard. We constructed a deep learning model named Galaxy Efficient Network (GalEffNet) for estimating integrated M * and specific star formation rate (sSFR) from Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument galaxy images. The GalEffNet primarily consists of a general feature extraction module and a parameter feature extractor. The research results indicate that the proposed GalEffNet exhibits good performance in estimating M * and sSFR, with σ reaching 0.218 and 0.410 dex. To further assess the robustness of the network, prediction uncertainty was performed. The results show that our model maintains good consistency within a reasonable bias range. We also compared the performance of various network architectures and further tested the proposed scheme using image sets with various resolutions and wavelength bands. Furthermore, we conducted applicability analysis on galaxies of various sizes, redshifts, and morphological types. The results indicate that our model performs well across galaxies with various characteristics and indicate its potentials of broad applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young stellar clusters are predominantly the hub of star formation and hence, ideal to perform comprehensive studies over the least explored substellar regime. Various unanswered questions like the mass distribution in brown dwarf regime and the effect of diverse cluster environment on brown dwarf formation efficiency still plague the scientific community. The nearby young cluster, IC 1396 with its feedback-driven environment, is ideal to conduct such study. In this paper, we adopt a multiwavelength approach, using deep Subaru HSC along with other data sets and machine learning techniques to identify the cluster members complete down to ∼ 0.03 M⊙ in the central 22 arcmin area of IC 1396. We identify 458 cluster members including 62 brown dwarfs which are used to determine mass distribution in the region. We obtain a star-to-brown dwarf ratio of ∼ 6 for a stellar mass range 0.03–1 M⊙ in the studied cluster. The brown dwarf fraction is observed to increase across the cluster as radial distance from the central OB-stars increases. This study also compiles 15 young stellar clusters to check the variation of star-to-brown dwarf ratio relative to stellar density and ultraviolet (UV) flux ranging within 4–2500 stars pc−2 and 0.7–7.3  G 0, respectively. The brown dwarf fraction is observed to increase with stellar density but the results about the influence of incident UV flux are inconclusive within this range. This is the deepest study of IC 1396 as of yet and it will pave the way to understand various aspects of brown dwarfs using spectroscopic observations in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fraction of ionizing photons that escape their host galaxies to ionize hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) is a critical parameter in analyses of the reionization era. In this paper, we use the meraxes semi-analytic galaxy formation model to infer the mean ionizing photon escape fraction and its dependence on galaxy properties through joint modelling of the observed high redshift galaxy population and existing constraints on the reionization history. Using a Bayesian framework, and under the assumption that escape fraction is primarily related to halo mass, we find that the joint constraints of the ultraviolet luminosity function, cosmic microwave background optical depth, and the Ly α forest require an escape fraction of |$(18\pm 5)$| per cent for galaxies within haloes of M ≲ 109 M⊙ and |$(5\pm 2)$| per cent for more massive haloes. In terms of galaxy properties, this transition in escape fraction occurs at stellar masses of M ⋆ ∼ 107 M⊙, nearly independent of redshift. As a function of redshift, reionization is dominated by the smaller M ⋆ ≲ 107 M⊙ galaxies with high escape fractions at z ≳ 6 and by the larger M ⋆ ≳ 107 M⊙ galaxies with lower escape fractions at z ≲ 6. Galaxies with star formation rates of 10−2.5 M⊙yr−1 to 10−1.5 M⊙yr−1 provide the dominant source of ionizing photons throughout reionization. Our results are consistent with recent direct measurements of a |$\sim 5~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| escape fraction from massive galaxies at the end of reionization and support the picture of low mass galaxies being the dominant sources of ionizing photons during reionization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the third data release of the INvestigating Stellar Population In RElics (INSPIRE) project, comprising 52 ultra-compact massive galaxies (UCMGs) observed with the X-Shooter spectrograph. We measure integrated stellar velocity dispersion, [Mg/Fe] abundances, ages, and metallicities for all the INSPIRE objects. We thus infer star formation histories and confirm the existence of a degree of relicness (DoR), defined in terms of the fraction of stellar mass formed by z  = 2, the time at which a galaxy has assembled 75 per cent of its mass, and the final assembly time. Objects with a high DoR assembled their stellar mass at early epochs, while low-DoR objects show a non-negligible fraction of later formed populations and hence a spread in ages and metallicities. A higher DoR correlates with larger [Mg/Fe], supersolar metallicity, and larger velocity dispersion values. The 52 UMCGs span a large range of DoR from 0.83 to 0.06, with 38 of them having formed more than 75  per cent of their mass by z  = 2. Of these, nine are extreme relics (DoR>0.7), since they formed the totality (⁠|$\gt 99~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$|⁠) of their stellar mass by redshift z  = 2. The remaining 14 UCMGs cannot be considered relics, as they are characterized by more extended star formation histories. With INSPIRE  we built the first sizeable sample of relics outside the local Universe, up to z ∼ 0.4, increasing the number of confirmed relics by a factor of >10, and opening up an important window to explain the mass assembly of massive galaxies in the high- z Universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the launch of JWST and other scheduled missions aimed at probing the distant universe, we are entering a new promising era for high- z astronomy. One of our main goals is the detection of the first population of stars (Population III or Pop III stars), and models suggest that Pop III star formation is allowed well into the Epoch of Reionization (EoR), rendering this an attainable achievement. In this paper, we focus on our chance of detecting massive Pop IIIs at the moment of their death as Pair-Instability Supernovae (PISNe). We estimate the probability of discovering PISNe during the EoR in galaxies with different stellar masses (7.5 ≤ Log(M ⋆/M⊙) ≤ 10.5) from six dustyGadget simulations of 50  h −1 cMpc per side. We further assess the expected number of PISNe in surveys with JWST/NIRCam and Roman/WFI. On average, less than one PISN is expected in all examined JWST fields at z ≃ 8 with Δ z  = 1, and O(1) PISN may be found in a ∼1 deg2 Roman field in the best-case scenario, although different assumptions on the Pop III IMF and/or Pop III star formation efficiency can decrease this number substantially. Including the contribution from unresolved low-mass haloes holds the potential for increased discoveries. JWST/NIRCam and Roman/WFI allow the detection of massive-progenitor (∼250 M⊙) PISNe throughout all the optimal F200W-F356W, F277W-F444W, and F158-F213 colours. PISNe are also pre-dominantly located at the outskirts of their hosting haloes, facilitating the disentangling of underlying stellar emission thanks to the spatial-resolution capabilities of the instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estimation of galaxy stellar masses depends on the assumed prior of the star-formation history (SFH) and spatial scale of the analysis (spatially resolved versus integrated scales). In this paper, we connect the prescription of the SFH in the spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting to spatially resolved scales (∼kpc) to shed light on the systematics involved when estimating stellar masses. Specifically, we fit the integrated photometry of ∼970 massive (log (M⋆/M⊙) = 9.8–11.5), intermediate redshift (z  = 0.5–2.0) galaxies with PROSPECTOR , assuming both exponentially declining tau model and flexible SFHs. We complement these fits with the results of spatially resolved SFH estimates obtained by pixel-by-pixel SED fitting, which assume tau models for individual pixels. These spatially resolved SFHs show a large diversity in shapes, which can largely be accounted for by the flexible SFHs with PROSPECTOR. The differences in the stellar masses from those two approaches are overall in good agreement (average difference of ∼0.07 dex). Contrarily, the simpler tau model SFHs typically miss the oldest episode of star formation, leading to an underestimation of the stellar mass by ∼0.3 dex. We further compare the derived global specific star-formation rate (sSFR), the mass-weighted stellar age (t50), and the star-formation time-scale (τSF) obtained from the different SFH approaches. We conclude that the spatially resolved scales within galaxies motivate a flexible SFH on global scales to account for the diversity of SFHs and counteract the effects of outshining of older stellar populations by younger ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We characterize the earliest galaxy population in the JADES Origins Field, the deepest imaging field observed with JWST. We make use of ancillary Hubble Space Telescope optical images (five filters spanning 0.4–0.9 μ m) and novel JWST images with 14 filters spanning 0.8−5 μ m, including seven medium-band filters, and reaching total exposure times of up to 46 hr per filter. We combine all our data at >2.3 μ m to construct an ultradeep image, reaching as deep as ≈31.4 AB mag in the stack and 30.3–31.0 AB mag (5 σ, r = 0.″1 circular aperture) in individual filters. We measure photometric redshifts and use robust selection criteria to identify a sample of eight galaxy candidates at redshifts z = 11.5−15. These objects show compact half-light radii of R 1/2 ∼ 50−200 pc, stellar masses of M ⋆ ∼ 107−108 M ☉, and star formation rates ∼ 0.1−1 M ☉ yr−1. Our search finds no candidates at 15 < z < 20, placing upper limits at these redshifts. We develop a forward-modeling approach to infer the properties of the evolving luminosity function without binning in redshift or luminosity that marginalizes over the photometric redshift uncertainty of our candidate galaxies and incorporates the impact of nondetections. We find a z = 12 luminosity function in good agreement with prior results, and that the luminosity function normalization and UV luminosity density decline by a factor of ∼2.5 from z = 12 to z = 14. We discuss the possible implications of our results in the context of theoretical models for evolution of the dark matter halo mass function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using an ultradeep JWST/MIRI image at 5.6 μ m in the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, we constrain the role of strong H α emitters (HAEs) during "cosmic reionization" at z ≃ 7–8. Our sample of HAEs is comprised of young (<35 Myr) galaxies, except for one single galaxy (≈300 Myr), with low stellar masses (≲109 M ⊙). These HAEs show a wide range of rest-frame UV continuum slopes (β), with a median value of β = −2.15 ± 0.21, which broadly correlates with stellar mass. We estimate the ionizing photon production efficiency (ξ ion,0) of these sources (assuming f esc,LyC = 0%), which yields a median value log 10 (ξ ion , 0 / (Hz erg − 1)) = 25.50 − 0.12 + 0.10 . We show that ξ ion,0 positively correlates with H α equivalent width and specific star formation rate. Instead ξ ion,0 weakly anticorrelates with stellar mass and β. Based on the β values, we predict f esc , LyC = 4 % − 2 + 3 , which results in log 10 (ξ ion / (Hz erg − 1)) = 25.55 − 0.13 + 0.11 . Considering this and related findings from the literature, we find a mild evolution of ξ ion with redshift. Additionally, our results suggest that these HAEs require only modest escape fractions (f esc,rel) of 6%–15% to reionize their surrounding intergalactic medium. By only considering the contribution of these HAEs, we estimated their total ionizing emissivity ( N ̇ ion ) as N ̇ ion = 10 50.53 ± 0.45 s − 1 Mpc − 3 . When comparing their N ̇ ion with non-HAE galaxies across the same redshift range, we find that that strong, young, and low-mass emitters may have played an important role during cosmic reionization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quiescent galaxies generally possess denser cores than star-forming galaxies with similar mass. As a measurement of the core density, the central stellar mass surface density within a radius of 1 kpc (Σ1) was thus suggested to be closely related to galaxy quenching. Massive star-forming galaxies with high Σ1 do not fit into this picture. To understand the origin of such galaxies, we compare the spatially resolved stellar population and star formation properties of massive (>1010.5 M ⊙) blue spiral galaxies with high and low Σ1, divided by Σ1 = 109.4 M ⊙ kpc−2, based on the final release of MaNGA integral field unit data. We find that both high-Σ1 and low-Σ1 blue spirals show large diversities in stellar population and star formation properties. Despite the diversities, high-Σ1 blue spirals are statistically different from the low-Σ1 ones. Specifically, the radial profiles of the luminosity-weighted age and Mgb/〈Fe〉 show that high-Σ1 blue spirals consist of a larger fraction of galaxies with younger and less α -element-enhanced centers than their low-Σ1 counterparts, ∼55% versus ∼30%. The galaxies with younger centers mostly have higher central specific star formation rates, which still follow the spaxel-based star formation main-sequence relation. Examinations of the H α velocity field and the optical structures suggest that galactic bars or galaxy interactions should be responsible for the rejuvenation of these galaxies. The remaining ∼45% of high-Σ1 blue spirals are consistent with the inside-out growth scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between supermassive black hole (SMBH) feedback and the circumgalactic medium (CGM) continues to be an open question in galaxy evolution. In our study, we use smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to explore the impact of SMBH feedback on galactic metal retention and the motion of metals and gas into and through the CGM of L* galaxies. We examine 140 galaxies from the 25 Mpc cosmological volume Romulus25, with stellar masses between log(M */ M ⊙) = 9.5–11.5. We measure the fraction of metals remaining in the interstellar medium (ISM) and CGM of each galaxy and calculate the expected mass of each SMBH based on the M BH– σ relation (Kormendy & Ho 2013). The deviation of each SMBH from its expected mass, Δ M BH, is compared to the potential of its host via σ. We find that SMBHs with accreted mass above M BH– σ are more effective at removing metals from the ISM than undermassive SMBHs in star-forming galaxies. Overall, overmassive SMBHs suppress the total star formation of their host galaxies and more effectively move metals from the ISM into the CGM. However, we see little to no evacuation of gas from the CGM out of their halos, in contrast with other simulations. Finally, we predict that C iv column densities in the CGM of L* galaxies are unlikely to depend on host galaxy SMBH mass. Our results show that the scatter in the low-mass end of the M BH– σ relation may indicate how effective an SMBH is in the local redistribution of mass in its host galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theoretical work investigates different models to predict the redshift of fast radio bursts (FRBs) from their observed dispersion measure (DM) and other reported properties. We performed an extended revision of the FRBs with confirmed galaxy hosts in the literature and built the most updated catalog to date. With this sample of FRBs, we propose four models that relate the DM and z: a linear trend (inspired by the Macquart relation), a log-parabolic function, a power law, and an interpolation for DM that includes z and the position of the host galaxy of the transient. The latter model has the highest success rate according to the metrics implemented: likelihood, median of the z difference, and the Akaike and Bayesian information criteria. Although the performance of model D is closely followed by the power law and linear models, the former has the advantage of accounting for anisotropies in the dispersion measure due to the angular coordinates. Conversely, the log-parabolic formula performs poorly in this task but provides a good prediction for FRBs with low DM at a low redshift. Additionally, we use the reported galaxy properties of the hosts to establish a connection between the observed DM with the star formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass (Ms) of the galaxies where the FRBs reside. In both cases, we find a weak correlation. Although the studied correlations are well-motivated, the sample of FRBs is not statistically significant enough to draw solid conclusions in this second part of our work. With the advent of new facilities devoted to studying the localization and nature of these transients, we will get access to new data that will enrich the proposed models and give us hints on the astrophysical origin and evolution of FRBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large-scale environment of the cosmic web is believed to impact galaxy evolution, but there is still no consensus regarding the mechanisms. We use a semi-analytic model (SAM) galaxy catalog to study the star formation and dust content of local galaxies in different cosmic environments of the cosmic web—namely voids, filaments, walls, and nodes. We find a strong impact of the environment only for galaxies with M stars ≲ 1010.8 M ⊙: the less dense the environment, the larger the star formation rate and dust content at fixed stellar mass. This is attributed to the fact that galaxies in less dense environments typically feature younger stellar populations, a slower evolution of their stellar mass, and delayed star formation compared to galaxies in denser environments. As for galaxies with M stars ≳ 1010.8 M ⊙, the differences among environments are milder, due to the disk-instability-driven supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth implemented in the SAM, which makes SMBH growth, and thus galaxy quenching, environment-insensitive. We qualitatively test our predictions against observations by identifying environments in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16 using dust masses derived from the GAMA survey. The agreement is encouraging, particularly at log M stars / M ⊙ ≳ 10.5 – 11 , where the specific star formation rates and dust masses appear quite environment-insensitive. This result confirms the importance of in situ growth channels of SMBHs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations have revealed an increasing number of compact protostellar disks with radii of less than a few tens of astronomical units and that young Class 0/I objects have an intrinsic size diversity. To deepen our understanding of the origin of such tiny disks, we have performed highest-resolution configuration observations with ALMA at a beam size of ∼0.″03 (4 au) on the very low-luminosity Class 0 protostar embedded in the Taurus dense core MC 27/L1521F. The 1.3 mm continuum measurement successfully resolved a tiny, faint (∼1 mJy) disk with a major axis length of ∼10 au, one of the smallest examples in the ALMA protostellar studies. In addition, we detected spike-like components in the northeastern direction at the disk edge. Gravitational instability or other fragmentation mechanisms cannot explain the structures, given the central stellar mass of ∼0.2 M ⊙ and the disk mass of ≳10−4 M ⊙. Instead, we propose that these small spike structures were formed by a recent dynamic magnetic flux transport event due to interchange instability that would be favorable to occur if the parental core has a strong magnetic field. The presence of complex arc-like structures on a larger (∼2000 au) scale in the same direction as the spike structures suggests that the event was not single. Such episodic, dynamical events may play an important role in maintaining the compact nature of the protostellar disk in the complex gas envelope during the main accretion phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galaxies play a key role in our endeavor to understand how structure formation proceeds in the Universe. For any precision study of cosmology or galaxy formation, there is a strong demand for huge sets of realistic mock galaxy catalogs, spanning cosmologically significant volumes. For such a daunting task, methods that can produce a direct mapping between dark matter halos from dark matter-only simulations and galaxies are strongly preferred, as producing mocks from full-fledged hydrodynamical simulations or semi-analytical models is too expensive. Here, we present a graph-neural-network-based model that is able to accurately predict key properties of galaxies such as stellar mass, g − r color, star formation rate, gas mass, stellar metallicity, and gas metallicity, purely from dark matter properties extracted from halos along the full assembly history of the galaxies. Tests based on the TNG300 simulation of the IllustrisTNG project show that our model can recover the baryonic properties of galaxies to high accuracy, over a wide redshift range (z = 0–5), for all galaxies with stellar masses more massive than 109 M ⊙ and their progenitors, with strong improvements over the state-of-the-art methods. We further show that our method makes substantial strides toward providing an understanding of the implications of the IllustrisTNG galaxy formation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galaxy interactions and mergers can enhance or reduce star formation, but a complete understanding of the involved processes is still lacking. The effect of dwarf galaxy mergers is even less clear than their massive counterpart. We present a study on a dwarf merger remnant in the Virgo cluster, VCC322, which might form a triple system with VCC334 and VCC319. We identify a prominent long and straight tail-like substructure that has a size comparable to its host galaxy VCC322. By comparing the color–color (g − r versus r − H) distribution with simple stellar population models, we infer that the metallicity and stellar age of this tail are Z ⋆ ∼ 0.02 Z ⊙ and t ⋆ ∼ 10 Gyr, respectively. In VCC319, we find a sign of isophotal twisting. This suggests that VCC319 may be subject to tidal interaction. An analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey optical spectra of VCC322 indicates mass- and light-weighted ages of about 109.8 yr and 107.5 yr, respectively, indicating an ongoing star formation activity. However, the star formation in VCC322 seems suppressed when compared to other star-forming dwarfs of comparable stellar masses. Our finding of shock excitation of optical emission lines indicates that interaction-induced shock may contribute to the heating of cold gas and suppression of star formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We measure the CO-to-H2 conversion factor (α CO) in 37 galaxies at 2 kpc resolution, using the dust surface density inferred from far-infrared emission as a tracer of the gas surface density and assuming a constant dust-to-metal ratio. In total, we have ∼790 and ∼610 independent measurements of α CO for CO (2–1) and (1–0), respectively. The mean values for α CO (2–1) and α CO (1–0) are 9.3 − 5.4 + 4.6 and 4.2 − 2.0 + 1.9 M ⊙ pc − 2 (K km s − 1) − 1 , respectively. The CO-intensity-weighted mean is 5.69 for α CO (2–1) and 3.33 for α CO (1–0). We examine how α CO scales with several physical quantities, e.g., the star formation rate (SFR), stellar mass, and dust-mass-weighted average interstellar radiation field strength ( U ¯ ). Among them, U ¯ , ΣSFR, and the integrated CO intensity (W CO) have the strongest anticorrelation with spatially resolved α CO. We provide linear regression results to α CO for all quantities tested. At galaxy-integrated scales, we observe significant correlations between α CO and W CO, metallicity, U ¯ , and ΣSFR. We also find that α CO in each galaxy decreases with the stellar mass surface density (Σ⋆) in high-surface-density regions (Σ⋆ ≥ 100 M ⊙ pc−2), following the power-law relations α CO (2 – 1) ∝ Σ ⋆ − 0.5 and α CO (1 – 0) ∝ Σ ⋆ − 0.2 . The power-law index is insensitive to the assumed dust-to-metal ratio. We interpret the decrease in α CO with increasing Σ⋆ as a result of higher velocity dispersion compared to isolated, self-gravitating clouds due to the additional gravitational force from stellar sources, which leads to the reduction in α CO. The decrease in α CO at high Σ⋆ is important for accurately assessing molecular gas content and star formation efficiency in the centers of galaxies, which bridge "Milky Way–like" to "starburst-like" conversion factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aim to constrain the stellar initial mass function (IMF) during the epoch of reionization. To this purpose, we build up a semi-empirical model for the reionization history of the Universe based on various ingredients: the latest determination of the UV galaxy luminosity function from JWST out to redshift z ≲ 12 ; data-inferred and simulation-driven assumptions on the redshift-dependent escape fraction of ionizing photons from primordial galaxies; a simple yet flexible parameterization of the IMF ϕ (m ⋆) ∼ m ⋆ ξ e − m ⋆ , c / m ⋆ in terms of a high-mass end slope ξ < 0 and a characteristic mass m ⋆ , c , below which a flattening or a bending sets in (allowing description of a variety of IMF shapes from the classic Salpeter to top-heavy ones); the PARSEC stellar evolution code to compute the UV and ionizing emission from different stars' masses as a function of age and metallicity; and a few physical constraints related to stellar and galaxy formation in faint galaxies at the reionization redshifts. We then compare our model outcomes with the reionization observables from different astrophysical and cosmological probes and perform Bayesian inference on the IMF parameters via a standard MCMC technique. We find that the IMF slope ξ is within the range from − 2.8 to − 2.3 , consistent with direct determination from star counts in the Milky Way, while appreciably flatter slopes are excluded at great significance. However, the bestfit value of the IMF characteristic mass m ⋆ , c ∼a few M ⊙ implies a suppression in the formation of small stellar masses at variance with the IMF in the local Universe. This may be induced by the thermal background of ∼20–30 K provided by CMB photons at the reionization redshifts. We check that our results are robust against different parameterizations for the redshift evolution of the escape fraction. Finally, we investigate the implications of our reconstructed IMF for the recent JWST detections of massive galaxies at and beyond the reionization epoch, showing that any putative tension with the standard cosmological framework is substantially alleviated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present 500 and 700 au resolution 1 and 3 mm Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations, respectively, of protostellar cores in protoclusters Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2) North (N) and Main (M), parts of the most actively star-forming cloud in our Galaxy. Previous lower-resolution (5000 au) 3 mm observations of this region detected ∼150 sources inferred to be young stellar objects (YSOs) with M > 8 M ⊙. With a 10-fold increase in resolution, we detect 371 sources at 3 mm and 218 sources in the smaller field of view at 1 mm. The sources seen at low resolution are observed to fragment into an average of two objects. About one-third of the observed sources fragment. Most of the sources we report are marginally resolved and are at least partially optically thick. We determine that the observed sources are most consistent with Stage 0/I YSOs, i.e., rotationally supported disks with an active protostar and an envelope, that are warmer than those observed in the solar neighborhood. We report source-counting-based inferred stellar mass and the star formation rate of the cloud: 2800 M ⊙ and 0.0038 M ⊙ yr−1 for Sgr B2 N and 6900 M ⊙ and 0.0093 M ⊙ yr−1 for Sgr B2 M, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]