Probing Infrared eXcess to Investigate Early-Universe Dust (PIXIEDust)

Abstract

Despite the implied presence of dust through reddened UV emission in high-redshift galaxies, no dust emission has been detected in the (sub)millimetre regime beyond $z > 8.3$. This study combines around two hundred hours of Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) observations on ten $z > 8$ galaxies, revealing no significant dust emission down to a $1 \sigma$ depth of $2.0$, $2.0$, and $1.5 \,\mu$Jy at rest-frame 158, 88 $\mu$m, and across all the data, respectively. This constrains average dust masses to be below $< 10^{5}$ M$_{\odot}$ at $3 \sigma$ and dust-to-stellar mass ratios to be below $3.7 \times{} 10^{-4}$ (assuming $T_{\rm dust} = 50$ K and $\beta_{\rm dust} = 2.0$). Binning by redshift ($8 < z < 9.5$ and $9.5 < z < 15$), UV-continuum slope ($\beta_{\rm UV} \lessgtr -2$) and stellar mass ($\log_{10} M_{\ast}/{\rm M_{\odot}} \lessgtr 9$) yields similarly stringent constraints. Combined with other studies, these results are consistent with inefficient dust build-up in the $z > 8$ Universe, likely due to inefficient supernova production, limited interstellar grain growth and/or ejection by outflows. We provide data and tools online to facilitate community-wide high-redshift dust searches.