GOODS Spitzer IRAC Observations of High-z Galaxies

Abstract

The Great Observatory Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) Spitzer Legacy Program has obtained ~23.2 hours of IRAC observations in the HDF-N and the CDF-S (~330 arcmin^2 in total), among which a sub-area of ~50 arcmin^2 in the HDF-N has been observed to a depth of ~72 hours. Utilizing these deep IRAC data, we study the stellar masses and star formation histories of galaxies at z ≈ 6. While some of the i-band dropouts selected by the GOODS ACS observations are detected by these IRAC observations, some of them are not. We find that the i_(775)-dropouts in the IRAC-detected sample typically have stellar masses of ~10^(10)M_⊙ and ages of a few hundred million years old, consistent with our earlier results based on a smaller sample in the HUDF. On the other hand, the i-dropouts in the IRAC-invisible sample are significantly younger and less massive. Using these results, we derive the lower limit of the global stellar density at z ≈ 6, and find that at least 0.2–1.1% of the stellar mass in our local universe has been locked in stars by z ≈ 6.