JADES: The Star Formation and Dust Reddening Properties of Galaxies at 3 < z < 7

Abstract

We present the star formation and dust content properties for a sample of 646 galaxies at redshifts 3 < z < 7 as part of the JADES survey. Our analysis is based on measurements of the Hα/Hβ Balmer decrement using medium resolution (R ∼ 1000) spectroscopic observations with the JWST/NIRSpec microshutter assembly. Stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) are inferred with Prospector using deep multiband imaging. We utilize the Balmer decrement to measure dust-corrected Hα-based SFRs, taking into account the subsolar metallicities observed in galaxies at high redshift. We confirm, with our large sample size, that the correlation between the Balmer decrement and stellar mass is already established out to z ∼ 7. We find that the relation between the Balmer decrement and stellar mass does not significantly evolve from the local Universe to z ∼ 7. We investigate the UV slope as a function of the Balmer optical depth and find that the best-fit correlation for our high redshift sample is specific SFR (sSFR) dependent and significantly different at high redshift when compared to galaxies at z ≈ 0 and z ≈ 2. For the highest sSFR galaxies in our sample, there is no significant correlation between the UV slope and Balmer optical depth. This is evidence that the UV slope should be used with great caution to correct for dust in high redshift galaxies.