TY - JOUR
T1 - Carbonaceous dust grains seen in the first billion years of cosmic time
AU - Witstok, Joris
AU - Shivaei, Irene
AU - Smit, Renske
AU - Maiolino, Roberto
AU - Carniani, Stefano
AU - Curtis-Lake, Emma
AU - Ferruit, Pierre
AU - Arribas, Santiago
AU - Bunker, Andrew J.
AU - Cameron, Alex J.
AU - Charlot, Stephane
AU - Chevallard, Jacopo
AU - Curti, Mirko
AU - de Graaff, Anna
AU - D’Eugenio, Francesco
AU - Giardino, Giovanna
AU - Looser, Tobias J.
AU - Rawle, Tim
AU - Rodríguez del Pino, Bruno
AU - Willott, Chris
AU - Alberts, Stacey
AU - Baker, William M.
AU - Boyett, Kristan
AU - Egami, Eiichi
AU - Eisenstein, Daniel J.
AU - Endsley, Ryan
AU - Hainline, Kevin N.
AU - Ji, Zhiyuan
AU - Johnson, Benjamin D.
AU - Kumari, Nimisha
AU - Lyu, Jianwei
AU - Nelson, Erica
AU - Perna, Michele
AU - Rieke, Marcia
AU - Robertson, Brant E.
AU - Sandles, Lester
AU - Saxena, Aayush
AU - Scholtz, Jan
AU - Sun, Fengwu
AU - Tacchella, Sandro
AU - Williams, Christina C.
AU - Willmer, Christopher N.A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/9/14
Y1 - 2023/9/14
N2 - Large dust reservoirs (up to approximately 108 M ⊙) have been detected1–3 in galaxies out to redshift z ≃ 8, when the age of the Universe was only about 600 Myr. Generating substantial amounts of dust within such a short timescale has proven challenging for theories of dust formation4,5 and has prompted the revision of the modelling of potential sites of dust production6–8, such as the atmospheres of asymptotic giant branch stars in low-metallicity environments, supernova ejecta and the accelerated growth of grains in the interstellar medium. However, degeneracies between different evolutionary pathways remain when the total dust mass of galaxies is the only available observable. Here we report observations of the 2,175 Å dust attenuation feature, which is well known in the Milky Way and galaxies at z ≲ 3 (refs. 9–11), in the near-infrared spectra of galaxies up to z ≃ 7, corresponding to the first billion years of cosmic time. The relatively short timescale implied for the formation of carbonaceous grains giving rise to this feature12 suggests a rapid production process, possibly in Wolf–Rayet stars or supernova ejecta.
AB - Large dust reservoirs (up to approximately 108 M ⊙) have been detected1–3 in galaxies out to redshift z ≃ 8, when the age of the Universe was only about 600 Myr. Generating substantial amounts of dust within such a short timescale has proven challenging for theories of dust formation4,5 and has prompted the revision of the modelling of potential sites of dust production6–8, such as the atmospheres of asymptotic giant branch stars in low-metallicity environments, supernova ejecta and the accelerated growth of grains in the interstellar medium. However, degeneracies between different evolutionary pathways remain when the total dust mass of galaxies is the only available observable. Here we report observations of the 2,175 Å dust attenuation feature, which is well known in the Milky Way and galaxies at z ≲ 3 (refs. 9–11), in the near-infrared spectra of galaxies up to z ≃ 7, corresponding to the first billion years of cosmic time. The relatively short timescale implied for the formation of carbonaceous grains giving rise to this feature12 suggests a rapid production process, possibly in Wolf–Rayet stars or supernova ejecta.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41586-023-06413-w
DO - 10.1038/s41586-023-06413-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 37467786
AN - SCOPUS:85169920887
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 621
SP - 267
EP - 270
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7978
ER -