The UV continuum slopes of early star-forming galaxies in JADES

Abstract

The power-law slope of the rest-ultraviolet (UV) continuum (fλ ∝ λβ) is a key metric of early star-forming galaxies, providing one of our only windows into the stellar populations and physical conditions of z ≳10 galaxies. Expanding upon previous studies with limited sample sizes, we leverage deep imaging from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) to investigate the UV slopes of 179 z≳ 9 galaxies with apparent magnitudes of mF200W ⋍ 26–31, which display a median UV slope of β = −2.4. We compare to a statistical sample of z ⋍ 5–9 galaxies, finding a shift towards bluer rest-UV colours at all MUV. The most UV-luminous z ≳ 9 galaxies are significantly bluer than their lower redshift counterparts, representing a dearth of moderately red galaxies within the first 500 Myr. At yet earlier times, the z ≳ 11 galaxy population exhibits very blue UV slopes, implying very low impact from dust attenuation. We identify a robust sample of 44 galaxies with β ≲ −2.8, which have spectral energy distributions requiring models of density-bounded H II regions and median ionizing photon escape fractions of 0.51 to reproduce. Their rest-optical colours imply that this sample has weaker emission lines (median mF356W − mF444W = 0.19 mag) than typical galaxies (median mF356W − mF444W = 0.39 mag), consistent with the inferred escape fractions. This sample consists of relatively low stellar masses (median log(M/M⊙) = 7.5 ± 0.2), and specific star formation rates (sSFRs; median = 79 Gyr−1) nearly twice that of our full galaxy sample (median sSFRs = 44 Gyr−1), suggesting these objects are more common among systems experiencing a recent upturn in star formation. We demonstrate that the shutoff of star formation provides an alternative solution for modelling of extremely blue UV colours, making distinct predictions for the rest-optical emission of these galaxies. Future spectroscopy will be required to distinguish between these physical pictures.