Probing infrared eXcess to investigate early-Universe dust (PIXIEDust)
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2026

Despite the implied presence of dust through reddened UV emission in high-redshift galaxies, no dust emission has been detected in the (sub)millimetre regime beyond z > 8.3. This study combines around 200 h of Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) and Northern Extended Millimetre. Array (NOEMA) observations on 10 z > 8 galaxies, revealing no significant dust emission down to a 1σ depth of 2.0, 2.0, and 1.5 μJy at rest-frame 158, 88 μm, and across all the data, respectively.

This constrains average dust masses to be below < 105 M at 3σ and dust-to-stellar mass ratios to be below 3.7 × 10−4 (assuming Tdust = 50 K and βdust = 2.0). Binning by redshift (8 < z < 9.5 and 9.5 < z < 15), UV-continuum slope (βUV ≶ −2), and stellar mass (log10 M∗/M ≶ 9) yields similarly stringent constraints. Combined with other studies, these results are consistent with inefficient dust build-up in the z > 8 Universe, likely due to inefficient supernova production, limited interstellar grain growth and/or ejection by outflows. We provide data and tools online to facilitate community wide high-redshift dust searches.

galaxies: evolution

dust, extinction

galaxies: formation

submillimetre: galaxies

galaxies: high-redshift

Författare

Tom Bakx

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Astronomi och plasmafysik

H. Algera

Academia Sinica

J. B. Jolly

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Clarke Jarett Esmerian

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Astronomi och plasmafysik

Kirsten Knudsen

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Astronomi och plasmafysik

Laura Sommovigo

Flatiron Institute

Joris Witstok

Niels Bohr Institute

Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)

S. Carniani

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa

Jianhang Chen

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

European Southern Observatory (ESO)

S. Eales

Cardiff University

Andrea Ferrara

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa

Yoshinobu Fudamoto

National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Waseda University

Chiba University

Masato Hagimoto

Nagoya University

Takuya Hashimoto

University of Tsukuba

H. Inami

Hiroshima University

Akio K. Inoue

Waseda University

Theo Khouri

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Astronomi och plasmafysik

Ikki Mitsuhashi

University of Colorado

G Nyman

Göteborgs universitet

Gustav Olander

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Astronomi och plasmafysik

S. Serjeant

The Open University

Renske Smit

Liverpool John Moores University

I. Yoon

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

J. A. Zavala

University of Massachusetts

Susanne Aalto

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Astronomi och plasmafysik

Caitlin M. Casey

University of California

Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)

Y. Tamura

University of Tsukuba

Wouter Vlemmings

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Astronomi och plasmafysik

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

0035-8711 (ISSN) 1365-2966 (eISSN)

Vol. 546 2 staf2284

The Origin and Fate of Dust in Our Universe

Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse (KAW 2019.0443), 2020-06-01 -- 2023-05-31.

Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse (KAW 2020.0081), 2021-07-01 -- 2026-06-30.

Ämneskategorier (SSIF 2025)

Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi

DOI

10.1093/mnras/staf2284

Relaterade dataset

Stacking deep ALMA observations of robust sources above redshift 8 [dataset]

URI: https://github.com/tjlcbakx/high-z-dust-stack

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2026-02-13