A Fleeting GLIMPSE of N/O Enrichment at Cosmic Dawn : Evidence for Wolf Rayet N Stars in a z = 6.1 Galaxy

Berg, Danielle A., Naidu, Rohan P., Chisholm, John, Atek, Hakim, Fujimoto, Seiji, Kokorev, Vasily, Furtak, Lukas J., Kobayashi, Chiaki, Schaerer, Daniel, Adamo, Angela, Fei, Qinyue, Korber, Damien, Matthee, Jorryt, Marques-Chaves, Rui, Martinez, Zorayda, Mcquinn, Kristen B. W., Muñoz, Julian B., Oesch, Pascal A., Stark, Daniel P., Stephenson, Mabel G. and Hsiao, Tiger Yu-Yang (2026) A Fleeting GLIMPSE of N/O Enrichment at Cosmic Dawn : Evidence for Wolf Rayet N Stars in a z = 6.1 Galaxy. The Astrophysical Journal, 1003 (2): 112. ISSN 0004-637X
Copy

We present the discovery of extreme nitrogen enrichment by Wolf Rayet nitrogen stars (WN) in the metal-poor ($\sim10\%Z_\odot$), lensed, compact ($R_{\rm eff}\sim20$ pc) galaxy RXCJ2248 at $z=6.1$, revealed by unprecedentedly deep JWST/NIRSpec medium-resolution spectroscopy from the GLIMPSE-D Survey. The exquisite S/N reveals multiple high-ionization nebular lines and broad Balmer and [OIII] components (FWHM$\sim700-3000$ km s$^{-1}$). We detect broadened HeII $λ$1640 and $λ$4687 (FWHM$\sim530$ km s$^{-1}$) and strong NIII] $λ$4642 emission consistent with a population of WN stars, making RXCJ2248 the most distant galaxy with confirmed WR features to date. We measure the multi-phase nebular density across five ions, the direct-method metallicity ($12+\log(\rm O/H)= 7.749\pm0.023$), and a non-uniform elemental enrichment pattern of extreme N/O enhancement ($\log(\rm N/O)=-0.390\pm0.035$ from N$^+$, N$^{+2}$, and N$^{+3}$) and suppressed C/O relative to empirical C/N trends. We show that this abundance pattern can be explained by enrichment from a dual-burst with a low WC/WN ratio, as expected at low metallicities. Crucially, these signatures can only arise during a brief, rare evolutionary window shortly after a burst ($\sim3-6$ Myr), when WN stars dominate chemical feedback but before dilution by later yields (e.g., supernovae). The observed frequency of strong N emitters at high$-z$ implies a $\sim50$ Myr burst duty cycle, suggesting that N/O outliers may represent a brief but ubiquitous phase in the evolution of highly star-forming early galaxies. The detection in RXCJ2248, therefore, provides the first direct evidence of WN-driven chemical enrichment in the early Universe and a novel timing argument for the bursty star formation cycles that shaped galaxies at cosmic dawn.


picture_as_pdf
Berg_2026_ApJ_1003_112.pdf
subject
Published Version
Available under Creative Commons: BY 4.0

View Download

EndNote BibTeX Reference Manager Refer Atom Dublin Core OpenURL ContextObject in Span MPEG-21 DIDL RIOXX2 XML HTML Citation OPENAIRE Data Cite XML OpenURL ContextObject METS ASCII Citation MODS
Export

Downloads