The ALPINE-ALMA [CII] Survey: Unveiling the baryon evolution in the interstellar medium of z ∼ 5 star-forming galaxies

¹ National Centre for Nuclear Research, ul. Pasteura 7, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland
² INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico d’Abruzzo, Via Maggini SNC, 64100 Teramo, Italy
³ Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
⁴ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy
⁵ SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy
⁶ IFPU – Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, 34014 Trieste, Italy
⁷ Instituto de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica, UNAM, Campus Morelia, CP 58089 Morelia, Mexico
⁸ Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, CNRS, CNES, 9 Av. du Colonel Roche, 31028 Toulouse, France
⁹ Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, 91405 Orsay, France
¹⁰ Gemini Observatory, NSF’s NOIRLab, 670 N. A’ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720, USA
¹¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616, USA
¹² Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University, 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan
¹³ INAF – Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna, Via Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy
¹⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Via Gobetti 93/2, 40129 Bologna, Italy
¹⁵ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea s/n, E-38205 La Laguna, Spain
¹⁶ Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38206 La Laguna, Spain
¹⁷ Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange, F-06000 Nice, France
¹⁸ IPAC, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
¹⁹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Firenze, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy
²⁰ INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125 Firenze, Italy
²¹ Instituto de Física y Astronomía, Universidad de Valparaíso, Avda. Gran Bretaña 1111, Valparaíso, Chile
²² Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), Am Campus 1, 3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria
²³ Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Observatoire Astronomique 392 de Strasbourg, UMR 7550, 67000 Strasbourg, France
²⁴ Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, CNES, LAM, Marseille, France
²⁵ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 3, 35122 Padova, Italy
²⁶ Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genéve, 51 Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
²⁷ University of Wisconsin, 475 N Charter Str., Madison, WI, USA
²⁸ Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, 98 bis Boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
²⁹ Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Jagtvej 128, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark
³⁰ DTU-Space, Technical University of Denmark, Elektrovej 327, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
³¹ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Jagtvej 128, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark
³² Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena, Chile
³³ Instituto de Investigación Multidisciplinar en Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena, Chile

^⋆ Corresponding author; prasad.sawant@ncbj.gov.pl

Received: 16 July 2024
Accepted: 2 December 2024

Abstract

Context. Recent observations suggest a significant and rapid buildup of dust in galaxies at high redshift (z > 4); this presents new challenges to our understanding of galaxy formation in the early Universe. Although our understanding of the physics of dust production and destruction in a galaxy’s interstellar medium (ISM) is improving, investigating the baryonic processes in the early universe remains a complex task owing to the inherent degeneracies in cosmological simulations and chemical evolution models.

Aims. In this work we characterized the evolution of 98 z ∼ 5 star-forming galaxies observed as part of the ALMA Large Program ALPINE by constraining the physical processes underpinning the gas and dust production, consumption, and destruction in their ISM.

Methods. We made use of chemical evolution models to simultaneously reproduce the observed dust and gas content of our galaxies, obtained respectively from spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting and ionized carbon measurements. For each galaxy we constrained the initial gas mass, gas inflows and outflows, and efficiencies of dust growth and destruction. We tested these models with both the canonical Chabrier and a top-heavy initial mass function (IMF); the latter allowed rapid dust production on shorter timescales.

Results. We successfully reproduced the gas and dust content in most of the older galaxies (≳600 Myr) regardless of the assumed IMF, predicting dust production primarily through Type II supernovae (SNe) and no dust growth in the ISM, as well as moderate inflow of primordial gas. In the case of intermediate-age galaxies (300−600 Myr), we reproduced the gas and dust content through Type II SNe and dust growth in ISM, though we observed an overprediction of dust mass in older galaxies, potentially indicating an unaccounted dust destruction mechanism and/or an overestimation of the observed dust masses. The number of young galaxies (≲300 Myr) reproduced, increases for models assuming top-heavy IMF but with maximal prescriptions of dust production. Galactic outflows are required (up to a mass-loading factor of 2) to reproduce the observed gas and dust mass, and to recover the decreasing trend of gas and dust over stellar mass with age. Assuming the Chabrier IMF, models are able to reproduce ∼65% of the total sample, while with top-heavy IMF the fraction increases to ∼93%, alleviating the tension between the observations and the models. Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will allow us to remove degeneracies in the diverse intrinsic properties of these galaxies (e.g., star formation histories and metallicity), thereby refining our models.