JWST Spectroscopic Census of ALMA Faint Submillimeter Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Abstract
We present a JWST/NIRSpec rest-frame optical spectroscopic census of ALMA 1-mm continuum sources in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) identified by the deep ALMA UDF and ASPECS programs. Our sample is composed of the ALMA flux-limited ($S_{1\,\mathrm{mm}}\gtrsim 0.1\,\mathrm{mJy}$) sources observed with medium-resolution NIRSpec spectroscopy from JADES and SMILES, 16 faint submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) at spectroscopic redshifts of $z\sim 1$-$4$. These SMGs show bright longer-wavelength optical lines (H$α$, [N II]$λ\lambda6548,6583$, and [S II]$λ\lambda6717,6731$) and faint shorter-wavelength optical lines (H$β$ and [O III]$λ\lambda4959,5007$) with a large nebular attenuation, $E(B-V)\sim0.3$-$1.8$. We test the SMGs using BPT diagnostics and Chandra X-ray fluxes, and find that most SMGs are classified as AGNs; the AGN fraction is $\sim80\%$ for the SMGs at $M_*>10^{10.5} M_\odot$. We find only one SMG ($10^{10.5} M_\odot$), these results indicate that the SMGs are mostly not special, but typical massive star-forming galaxies at high redshift.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Galaxies: Formation
Evolution
Phenomena
Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
Stellar
planetary
and galactic studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Publication date
- 26 January 2026
- Document type
- Preprint