Rise of the forsaken relics: connecting present-day stellar streams and phase-mixed galaxies to the Epoch of Reionization

TL;DR

The study addresses the near-far approach to constraining high-redshift, low-mass galaxy populations during the Epoch of Reionization, arguing that disrupted systems (stellar streams and phase-mixed remnants) significantly contribute to the progenitor pool but are often neglected. Using FIRE-2 zoom-in simulations, the authors quantify the share of proto-MW/LG stellar mass arising from these disrupted galaxies at z ≈ 6–9 and demonstrate that including them improves the normalization of the recovered SMFs/UVLFs by factors of 2–3 and reduces halo-to-halo slope scatter by 20–40%, enabling robust constraints down to stellar masses ~10^5 M⊙ or MUV ~ −10 at z ≥ 6. They further show that fossil-record reconstructions assuming a single z ≈ 6 progenitor per present-day system bias the inferred faint-end slope, and that neglecting disrupted systems underestimates the UV luminosity density during the reionization era. Finally, the work forecasts that roughly half of present-day streams with M⋆ ≥ 10^6 M⊙ should be detectable by upcoming Rubin Observatory and Roman Space Telescope surveys, offering an observational pathway to constrain high-z progenitors.

Abstract

The `near-far' approach to studying reionization leverages the star formation histories of the Milky Way (MW) or Local Group (LG) galaxies, derived from resolved photometry, to infer the low-mass/faint-end of the stellar mass functions (SMFs) or the ultraviolet luminosity functions (UVLFs) of high-redshift galaxies ($z \gtrsim 6$), beyond the current JWST detection limits ($M_{\mathrm{UV}} \gtrsim -15$). Previous works considered only intact low-mass galaxies in the MW and LG, neglecting disrupted galaxies such as stellar streams and phase-mixed objects. Using the FIRE-2 simulations, we show that these disrupted galaxies contribute up to $\sim50\%$ of the total stellar mass budget of the proto-MW/LG at $z =6-9$. Including all the progenitors of these disrupted galaxies improves the normalization of the recovered SMFs/UVLFs by factors of $\sim2-3$ and reduces the halo-to-halo variation in the slope by $\sim20-40\%$. This enables robust constraints down to at least the resolution limit of the simulations, near $M_\star$ $\sim$ $10^{5}$ $M_\odot$ or $M_{\mathrm{UV}} \sim -10$ at $z \gtrsim 6$. We also show that `fossil record' reconstructions - which assume each present-day system descends from a single reionization-era progenitor - are sensitive to the stellar mass/UV magnitude thresholds, which introduces bias in the inferred low-mass/faint-end slopes. Additionally, we demonstrate that neglecting disrupted systems underestimates the contribution of galaxies with $M_{\mathrm{UV}} \lesssim -15$ to the reionization-era UV luminosity density. Finally, we estimate that a significant fraction ($\sim50\%$) of streams with $M_\star$ $\gtrsim$ $10^{6}$ $M_\odot$ at $z=0$ should be detectable from upcoming Rubin Observatory and Roman Space Telescope observations.