GA-NIFS: ISM properties and metal enrichment in a merger-driven starburst during the epoch of reionization probed with JWST and ALMA

Journal article

We present deep JWST/NIRSpec integral-field spectroscopy (IFS) and ALMA [C ii]158m observations of COS-3018, a star-forming galaxy at z 6.85, as part of the GA-NIFS programme. Both G395H (R 2700) and PRISM (R 100) NIRSpec observations revealed that COS-3018 is comprised of three separate components detected in [O iii]5007, which we dub as Main, North, and East, with stellar masses of 10, 10, 10 . We detect [O iii]5007,4959, [O ii]3727,3729, and multiple Balmer lines in all three components together with [O iii]4363 in the Main and North components. This allows us to measure an interstellar medium temperature of = 1.27 and = 1.6 K with densities of = 1250250 and = 700200 cm, respectively. These deep observations allow us to measure an average metallicity of 12 + log(O/H) = 7.9–8.2 for the three components with the T-method. We do not find any significant evidence of metallicity gradients between the components. Furthermore, we also detect [N ii]6585, one of the highest redshift detections of this emission line. We find that in a small, metal-poor clump 0.2 arcsec west of the North component, N/O is elevated compared to other regions, indicating that nitrogen enrichment originates from smaller substructures, possibly proto-globular clusters. [O iii]5007 kinematics show that this system is merging, which is probably driving the ongoing, luminous starburst.

Authors: Scholtz, J; Curti, M; D’Eugenio, F; Übler, H; Maiolino, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Volume: 539
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 2463-2484
• Publication date: 2025-03-29
• Acceptance date: 2025-03-18
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf518
• EISSN: 1365-2966
• ISSN: 0035-8711
• Language: English
• Keywords: galaxies: ISM; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: abundances