JWST Imaging of Earendel, the Extremely Magnified Star at Redshift z = 6.2

Welch, Brian and Coe, Dan and Zackrisson, Erik and Mink, S. E. de and Ravindranath, Swara and Anderson, Jay and Brammer, Gabriel and Bradley, Larry and Yoon, Jinmi and Kelly, Patrick and Diego, Jose M. and Windhorst, Rogier and Zitrin, Adi and Dimauro, Paola and Jiménez-Teja, Yolanda and Abdurro’uf, . and Nonino, Mario and Acebron, Ana and Andrade-Santos, Felipe and Avila, Roberto J. and Bayliss, Matthew B. and Benítez, Alex and Broadhurst, Tom and Bhatawdekar, Rachana and Bradač, Maruša and Caminha, Gabriel B. and Chen, Wenlei and Eldridge, Jan and Farag, Ebraheem and Florian, Michael and Frye, Brenda and Fujimoto, Seiji and Gomez, Sebastian and Henry, Alaina and Hsiao, Tiger Y.-Y and Hutchison, Taylor A. and James, Bethan L. and Joyce, Meridith and Jung, Intae and Khullar, Gourav and Larson, Rebecca L. and Mahler, Guillaume and Mandelker, Nir and McCandliss, Stephan and Morishita, Takahiro and Newshore, Rosa and Norman, Colin and O’Connor, Kyle and Oesch, Pascal A. and Oguri, Masamune and Ouchi, Masami and Postman, Marc and Rigby, Jane R. and Ryan Jr, Russell E. and Sharma, Soniya and Sharon, Keren and Strait, Victoria and Strolger, Louis-Gregory and Timmes, F. X. and Toft, Sune and Trenti, Michele and Vanzella, Eros and Vikaeus, Anton (2022) JWST Imaging of Earendel, the Extremely Magnified Star at Redshift z = 6.2. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 940 (1). L1. ISSN 2041-8205

[thumbnail of 1.pdf] Text
1.pdf - Published Version
Download (1MB)

Abstract

The gravitationally lensed star WHL 0137–LS, nicknamed Earendel, was identified with a photometric redshift zphot = 6.2 ± 0.1 based on images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Here we present James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near Infrared Camera images of Earendel in eight filters spanning 0.8–5.0 μm. In these higher-resolution images, Earendel remains a single unresolved point source on the lensing critical curve, increasing the lower limit on the lensing magnification to μ > 4000 and restricting the source plane radius further to r < 0.02 pc, or ∼4000 au. These new observations strengthen the conclusion that Earendel is best explained by an individual star or multiple star system and support the previous photometric redshift estimate. Fitting grids of stellar spectra to our photometry yields a stellar temperature of Teff ≃ 13,000–16,000 K, assuming the light is dominated by a single star. The delensed bolometric luminosity in this case ranges from $\mathrm{log}(L)=5.8$ to 6.6 L⊙, which is in the range where one expects luminous blue variable stars. Follow-up observations, including JWST NIRSpec scheduled for late 2022, are needed to further unravel the nature of this object, which presents a unique opportunity to study massive stars in the first billion years of the universe.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: STM Open Press > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Unnamed user with email support@stmopenpress.com
Date Deposited: 21 Apr 2023 06:09
Last Modified: 24 Sep 2024 11:11
URI: http://journal.submissionpages.com/id/eprint/1015

Actions (login required)

View Item
View Item