Star Formation Rates and Stellar Masses of z = 7-8 Galaxies from IRAC Observations of the WFC3/IR Early Release Science and the HUDF Fields
Labbé, I.; González, V.; Bouwens, R. J.; Illingworth, G. D.; Franx, M.; Trenti, M.; Oesch, P. A.; van Dokkum, P. G.; Stiavelli, M.; Carollo, C. M.; Kriek, M.; Magee, D.
Abstract
We investigate the Spitzer/IRAC properties of 36 z ~ 7 z 850-dropout galaxies and three z ~ 8 Y 098 galaxies derived from deep/wide-area WFC3/IR data of the Early Release Science, the ultradeep HUDF09, and wide-area NICMOS data. We fit stellar population synthesis models to the spectral energy distributions to derive mean redshifts, stellar masses, and ages. The z ~ 7 galaxies are best characterized by substantial ages (>100 Myr) and M/LV ≈ 0.2. The main trend with decreasing luminosity is that of bluing of the far-UV slope from β ~ -2.0 to β ~ -3.0. This can be explained by decreasing metallicity, except for the lowest luminosity galaxies (0.1L* z = 3), where low metallicity and smooth star formation histories (SFHs) fail to match the blue far-UV and moderately red H - [3.6] color. Such colors may require episodic SFHs with short periods of activity and quiescence ("on-off" cycles) and/or a contribution from emission lines. The stellar mass of our sample of z ~ 7 star-forming galaxies correlates with star formation rate (SFR) according to log M* = 8.70(±0.09) + 1.06(±0.10)log SFR, implying that star formation may have commenced at z > 10. No galaxies are found with SFRs much higher or lower than the past averaged SFR suggesting that the typical star formation timescales are probably a substantial fraction of the Hubble time. We report the first IRAC detection of Y 098-dropout galaxies at z ~ 8. The average rest-frame U - V ≈ 0.3 (AB) of the three galaxies are similar to faint z ~ 7 galaxies, implying similar M/L. The stellar mass density to M UV,AB < -18 is ρ*(z = 8) = 1.8+0.7 -1.0 × 106 M sun Mpc-3, following log ρ*(z) = 10.6(±0.6) - 4.4(±0.7) log(1 + z) [M sun Mpc-3] over 3 < z < 8.