Probing the Nature of the First Galaxies with JWST and ALMA

Abstract

By implementing a model of primordial dust emission, we predict dust-continuum fluxes for massive galaxy sources similar to those recently detected by JWST at $z \gtrsim 7$. Current upper flux limits, obtained with ALMA for some of these sources, can constrain gas metallicity and dust fraction of the first galaxies. Encouragingly, if assuming expected properties for typical first galaxies (i.e., dust-to-metal mass ratio: $D/M = 5 \times 10^{-3}$, gas metallicity: $Z_{\rm g} = 5 \times 10^{-3}~Z_{\odot}$, star formation efficiency: $η= 0.01$), model far-infrared (FIR) fluxes are consistent with current upper flux limits inferred from ALMA bands 6 and 7 ($\lesssim 10^4$ nJy). Such low $D/M$ values and metallicities are in agreement with some scenarios proposed in the literature to explain the non-detection of the FIR dust continuum for high-$z$ JWST galaxy candidates. On the other hand, higher values of model parameters $D/M$ ($\gtrsim 0.06$) and $Z_{\rm g}$ ($\gtrsim 5 \times 10^{-2}~Z_{\odot}$) are ruled out by observational data, unless a higher $η$ is assumed. According to our findings, ALMA multi-band observations could constrain the dust chemistry and dust grain size distribution in the early universe. In this context, future observational challenges would involve not only reaching higher FIR sensitivities, but also increasing the wavelength coverage by exploring distinct ALMA bands.