A highly magnified star at redshift 6.2

Brian Welch; Dan Coe; Jose M Diego; Adi Zitrin; Erik Zackrisson; Paola Dimauro; Yolanda Jiménez-Teja; Patrick Kelly; Guillaume Mahler; Masamune Oguri; F X Timmes; Rogier Windhorst; Michael Florian; S E de Mink; Roberto J Avila; Jay Anderson; Larry Bradley; Keren Sharon; Anton Vikaeus; Stephan McCandliss; Maruša Bradač; Jane Rigby; Brenda Frye; Sune Toft; Victoria Strait; Michele Trenti; Soniya Sharma; Felipe Andrade-Santos; Tom Broadhurst

doi:10.1038/s41586-022-04449-y

A highly magnified star at redshift 6.2

Nature. 2022 Mar;603(7903):815-818. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04449-y. Epub 2022 Mar 30.

Authors

Brian Welch¹, Dan Coe^{2

3

4}, Jose M Diego⁵, Adi Zitrin⁶, Erik Zackrisson⁷, Paola Dimauro⁸, Yolanda Jiménez-Teja⁹, Patrick Kelly¹⁰, Guillaume Mahler^{11

12

13}, Masamune Oguri^{14

15

16}, F X Timmes^{17

18}, Rogier Windhorst¹⁷, Michael Florian¹⁹, S E de Mink^{20

21

22}, Roberto J Avila³, Jay Anderson³, Larry Bradley³, Keren Sharon¹¹, Anton Vikaeus⁷, Stephan McCandliss², Maruša Bradač²³, Jane Rigby²⁴, Brenda Frye¹⁹, Sune Toft^{25

26}, Victoria Strait^{23

25

26}, Michele Trenti^{27

28}, Soniya Sharma²⁴, Felipe Andrade-Santos^{22

29}, Tom Broadhurst^{30

31

32}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. bwelch7@jhu.edu.
² Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁴ Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) for the European Space Agency (ESA), STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁵ Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC-UC), Santander, Spain.
⁶ Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er-Sheva, Israel.
⁷ Observational Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
⁸ Observatório Nacional, Ministério da Ciencia, Tecnologia, Inovaçãoe Comunicações, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
⁹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Granada, Spain.
¹⁰ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
¹¹ Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
¹² Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University, Durham, UK.
¹³ Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Durham University, Durham, UK.
¹⁴ Research Center for the Early Universe, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
¹⁵ Center for Frontier Science, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan.
¹⁶ Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), University of Tokyo, Chiba, Japan.
¹⁷ School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
¹⁸ Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics - Center for the Evolution of the Elements, Tempe, AZ, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Astronomy, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
²⁰ Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Garching, Germany.
²¹ GRAPPA, Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
²² Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA.
²³ Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
²⁴ Observational Cosmology Lab, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
²⁵ Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Copenhagen, Denmark.
²⁶ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
²⁷ School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
²⁸ ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
²⁹ Clay Center Observatory, Dexter Southfield, Brookline, MA, USA.
³⁰ Department of Theoretical Physics, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Bilbao, Spain.
³¹ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), Donostia, Spain.
³² IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain.

PMID: 35354998
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04449-y

Abstract

Galaxy clusters magnify background objects through strong gravitational lensing. Typical magnifications for lensed galaxies are factors of a few but can also be as high as tens or hundreds, stretching galaxies into giant arcs^1,2. Individual stars can attain even higher magnifications given fortuitous alignment with the lensing cluster. Recently, several individual stars at redshifts between approximately 1 and 1.5 have been discovered, magnified by factors of thousands, temporarily boosted by microlensing^3-6. Here we report observations of a more distant and persistent magnified star at a redshift of 6.2 ± 0.1, 900 million years after the Big Bang. This star is magnified by a factor of thousands by the foreground galaxy cluster lens WHL0137-08 (redshift 0.566), as estimated by four independent lens models. Unlike previous lensed stars, the magnification and observed brightness (AB magnitude, 27.2) have remained roughly constant over 3.5 years of imaging and follow-up. The delensed absolute UV magnitude, -10 ± 2, is consistent with a star of mass greater than 50 times the mass of the Sun. Confirmation and spectral classification are forthcoming from approved observations with the James Webb Space Telescope.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.