Carbonaceous dust grains seen in the first billion years of cosmic time

Joris Witstok; Irene Shivaei; Renske Smit; Roberto Maiolino; Stefano Carniani; Emma Curtis-Lake; Pierre Ferruit; Santiago Arribas; Andrew J Bunker; Alex J Cameron; Stephane Charlot; Jacopo Chevallard; Mirko Curti; Anna de Graaff; Francesco D'Eugenio; Giovanna Giardino; Tobias J Looser; Tim Rawle; Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino; Chris Willott; Stacey Alberts; William M Baker; Kristan Boyett; Eiichi Egami; Daniel J Eisenstein; Ryan Endsley; Kevin N Hainline; Zhiyuan Ji; Benjamin D Johnson; Nimisha Kumari; Jianwei Lyu; Erica Nelson; Michele Perna; Marcia Rieke; Brant E Robertson; Lester Sandles; Aayush Saxena; Jan Scholtz; Fengwu Sun; Sandro Tacchella; Christina C Williams; Christopher N A Willmer

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06413-w

Carbonaceous dust grains seen in the first billion years of cosmic time

Nature. 2023 Sep;621(7978):267-270. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06413-w. Epub 2023 Jul 19.

Authors

Joris Witstok^{1

2}, Irene Shivaei^#³, Renske Smit^#⁴, Roberto Maiolino^{5

6

7}, Stefano Carniani⁸, Emma Curtis-Lake⁹, Pierre Ferruit¹⁰, Santiago Arribas¹¹, Andrew J Bunker¹², Alex J Cameron¹², Stephane Charlot¹³, Jacopo Chevallard¹², Mirko Curti^{5

6

14}, Anna de Graaff¹⁵, Francesco D'Eugenio^{5

6}, Giovanna Giardino¹⁶, Tobias J Looser^{5

6}, Tim Rawle¹⁷, Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino¹¹, Chris Willott¹⁸, Stacey Alberts¹⁹, William M Baker^{5

6}, Kristan Boyett^{20

21}, Eiichi Egami¹⁹, Daniel J Eisenstein²², Ryan Endsley²³, Kevin N Hainline¹⁹, Zhiyuan Ji¹⁹, Benjamin D Johnson²², Nimisha Kumari²⁴, Jianwei Lyu¹⁹, Erica Nelson²⁵, Michele Perna¹¹, Marcia Rieke¹⁹, Brant E Robertson²⁶, Lester Sandles^{5

6}, Aayush Saxena^{7

12}, Jan Scholtz^{5

6}, Fengwu Sun¹⁹, Sandro Tacchella^{5

6}, Christina C Williams²⁷, Christopher N A Willmer¹⁹

Affiliations

¹ Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. jnw30@cam.ac.uk.
² Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. jnw30@cam.ac.uk.
³ Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA. ishivaei@cab.inta-csic.es.
⁴ Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK. r.smit@ljmu.ac.uk.
⁵ Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
⁶ Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK.
⁸ Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy.
⁹ Centre for Astrophysics Research, Department of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK.
¹⁰ European Space Agency, European Space Astronomy Centre, Madrid, Spain.
¹¹ Centro de Astrobiología, CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain.
¹² Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
¹³ Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, Paris, France.
¹⁴ European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany.
¹⁵ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany.
¹⁶ ATG Europe for the European Space Agency, ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
¹⁷ European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹⁸ NRC Herzberg, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
¹⁹ Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
²⁰ School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
²¹ ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D).
²² Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA.
²³ Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA.
²⁴ AURA for European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
²⁵ Department for Astrophysical and Planetary Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.
²⁶ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
²⁷ NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Tucson, AZ, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Large dust reservoirs (up to approximately 10⁸M_⊙) have been detected^1-3 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 formation^4,5 and has prompted the revision of the modelling of potential sites of dust production^6-8, 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.