The first dusty galaxies across 6 z 14: Blue monsters, red monsters, and the bimodality of dust content in early galaxies

arXiv:2607.19471 · astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO · Submitted 2026-07-21 · Read on arXiv

Sergio Martínez-González, Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón, Santiago Jiménez

astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO

Submitted: 2026-07-21

Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication as a Letter in Astronomy & Astrophysics

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: JWST has revealed galaxies at z>10 with extremely blue UV-continuum slopes approaching beta UV-2.4, and low inferred dust contents.

Terminology

Abstract

JWST has revealed galaxies at z>10 with extremely blue UV-continuum slopes approaching beta UV-2.4, and low inferred dust contents. At similar redshifts, JWST and ALMA reveal dusty massive systems reaching beta UV-1. We aim to explain blue monsters and red monsters at z 10 as different outcomes of supernova dust retention in clustered star-forming systems and connect this bimodality to dusty massive galaxies at z 6 --7. We model dust removal in a cluster-dominated regime through cloud-scale mechanical blowout followed by breakout from stratified high-redshift disks. The shock-processed dust mass retained in the UV-attenuating layer is converted into a UV-continuum slope using absorption opacities derived from 3D hydrodynamical simulations of clustered supernovae in porous molecular clouds. In compact, gas-rich galaxies, efficient cloud blowout and disk breakout reduce the retained dust fraction to blue-monster levels, yielding beta UV-2.4. Larger stellar masses increase the retained dust column and produce red-monster-like systems with beta UV-1.5, reaching beta UV-0.5 when radiative losses weaken large-scale driving. The transition depends on whether clustered-supernova ejecta cross both the natal cloud and the galactic gas layer. Supernova dust production, shock processing, radiative losses, and mechanical venting can jointly explain UV-bright dust-poor galaxies and red dusty massive systems across 6 z 14.

Sources

Related papers