Star formation shut down by multiphase gas outflow in a galaxy at a redshift of 2.45.
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Large-scale outflows driven by supermassive black holes are thought to have a fundamental role in suppressing star formation in massive galaxies. However, direct observational evidence for this hypothesis is still lacking, particularly in the young universe where star-formation quenching is remarkably rapid1-3, thus requiring effective removal of gas4 as opposed to slow gas heating5,6. Although outflows of ionized gas are frequently detected in massive distant galaxies7, the amount of ejected mass is too small to be able to suppress star formation8,9. Gas ejection is expected to be more efficient in the neutral and molecular phases10, but at high redshift these have only been observed in starbursts and quasars11,12. Here we report JWST spectroscopy of a massive galaxy experiencing rapid quenching at a redshift of 2.445. We detect a weak outflow of ionized gas and a powerful outflow of neutral gas, with a mass outflow rate that is sufficient to quench the star formation. Neither X-ray nor radio activity is detected; however, the presence of a supermassive black hole is suggested by the properties of the ionized gas emission lines. We thus conclude that supermassive black holes are able to rapidly suppress star formation in massive galaxies by efficiently ejecting neutral gas.
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Acknowledgements: We acknowledge discussions with M. Brusa, K. Glazebrook, S. Kulkarni, L. Ciotti, A. Ferrara and A. B. Newman. The Blue Jay Survey is funded in part by STScI Grant JWST-GO-01810. S.B. is supported by the ERC Starting Grant ‘Red Cardinal’, GA 101076080. R.L.D. is supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. R.E. acknowledges the support from grant numbers 21-atp21-0077, NSF AST-1816420 and HST-GO-16173.001-A, as well as the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Center for Astrophysics. R.W. acknowledges funding of a Leibniz Junior Research Group (project number J131/2022) This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with programme GO 1810. This work also makes use of observations taken by the 3D-HST Treasury Program (GO 12177 and 12328) with the NASA/ESA HST, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.
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1476-4687
