J/A+A/693/A60ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/693/A60doi:10.26093/cds/vizier/bc-nn/lgaCDSHeintz K.E.Brammer G.B.Watson D.Oesch P.A.Keating L.C.Hayes M.J.,Abdurro'ufArellano-Cordova K.Z.Carnall A.C.Christiansen C.R.,Cullen F.Dave R.Dayal P.Ferrara A.Finlator K.Fynbo J.P.U.,Flury S.R.Gelli V.Gillman S.Gottumukkala R.Gould K.Greve T.R.,Hardin S.E.Hsiao T.Y.-Y.Hutter A.Jakobsson P.Killi M.,Khosravaninezhad N.Laursen P.Lee M.M.Magdis G.E.Matthee J.,Naidu R.P.Narayanan D.Pollock C.Prescott M.K.M.Rusakov V.,Shuntov M.Sneppen A.Smit R.Tanvir N.R.Terp C.Toft S.,Valentino F.Vijayan A.P.Weaver J.R.Wise J.H.Witstok J.2026-07-03T06:36:23Z2025-07-23T10:50:09ZCDS support team

CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France

cds-question@unistra.frgalaxiesredshiftedinfrared-astronomyspectroscopyOne of the surprising early findings with JWST has been the discovery of a strong "roll-over" or a softening of the absorption edge of Ly{alpha} in a large number of galaxies at z>~6, in addition to systematic offsets from photometric redshift estimates and fundamental galaxy scaling relations. This has been interpreted as strong cumulative damped Ly{alpha} absorption (DLA) wings from high column densities of neutral atomic hydrogen (HI), signifying major gas accretion events in the formation of these galaxies. To explore this new phenomenon systematically, we assembled the JWST/NIRSpec PRImordial gas Mass AssembLy (PRIMAL) legacy survey of 584 galaxies at z=5.0-13.4, designed to study the physical properties and gas in and around galaxies during the reionization epoch. We characterized this benchmark sample in full and spectroscopically derived the galaxy redshifts, metallicities, star formation rates, and ultraviolet (UV) slopes. We defined a new diagnostic, the Ly{alpha} damping parameter DLy{alpha}, to measure and quantify the net effect of Ly{alpha} emission strength, the HI fraction in the intergalactic medium, or the local HI column density for each source. The JWST-PRIMAL survey is based on the spectroscopic DAWN JWST Archive (DJA-Spec). We describe DJA-Spec in this paper, detailing the reduction methods, the post-processing steps, and basic analysis tools. All the software, reduced spectra, and spectroscopically derived quantities and catalogs are made publicly available in dedicated repositories. We find that the fraction of galaxies showing strong integrated DLAs with NHI>10^21^cm^-2^ only increases slightly from ~60% at z~6 up to ~65-90% at z>8. Similarly, the prevalence and prominence of Ly{alpha} emission is found to increase with decreasing redshift, in qualitative agreement with previous observational results. Strong Ly{alpha} emitters (LAEs) are predominantly found to be associated with low-metallicity and UV faint galaxies. By contrast, strong DLAs are observed in galaxies with a variety of intrinsic physical properties, but predominantly at high redshifts and low metallicities. Our results indicate that strong DLAs likely reflect a particular early assembly phase of reionization-era galaxies, at which point they are largely dominated by pristine HI gas accretion. At z=8-10, this gas gradually cools and forms into stars that ionize their local surroundings, forming large ionized bubbles and producing strong observed Ly{alpha} emission at z<8.2025A&A...693A..60Hhttps://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/693/A60CatalogResearchIsServedByTAP VizieR generic serviceIsServedByConesearch servicehttps://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.htmlhttps://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/693/A60https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/693/A60http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/693/A60https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/693/A60https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/693/A60http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/693/A60GETtext/xml+votablehttps://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tapCone search capability for table J/A+A/693/A60/catalog (JWST-PRIMAL catalog)https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/693/A60/catalog?https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/693/A60/catalog?http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/693/A60/catalog?GETtext/xml+votable180.050000true214.94391152.85004190.0055555555555555566/5119 6021 7904 11252 11398 11425 11638 12644 16486 17679 17690 19097 27258 28448 33192 35935https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/moc/J/A+A/693/A60?format=asciiInfrareddefaultJ/A+A/693/A60/catalogJWST-PRIMAL catalogrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintSrcID? Designated MSA source ID (from FileName)meta.id;meta.mainintnullableRAJ2000Right ascension (J2000)degpos.eq.ra;meta.mainDEJ2000Declination (J2000)degpos.eq.dec;meta.mainzspecSpectroscopic redshiftsrc.redshiftdoubleS/N-UVRest-frame UV signal-to-noise ratiostat.snrdoubleUVMAGAbsolute UV (rest-frame ~1500{AA}) magnitudemagphys.magAbsdoubleEWO3Hb? Rest-frame [OIII]+H{beta} equivalent width0.1nmspect.line.eqWidthdoublenullablebetaUV? Rest-frame UV (1250-2600{AA}) spectral slopemeta.crypticdoublenullablee_betaUVRest-frame UV (1250-2600{AA}) spectral slope errorstat.errordoubleDLyaLy{alpha} damping parameter0.1nmphys.atmol.damping;phys.atmoldoublee_DLyaLy{alpha} damping parameter error0.1nmstat.errordoubleSFR? Star formation rate derived from H{beta} (z<10) or [OII] (z>10), not corrected for dustsolMass/yrphys.SFRdoublenullablee_SFR? Star formation rate derived from H{beta} (z<10) or [OII] (z>10), not corrected for dust, errorsolMass/yrstat.error;phys.SFRdoublenullableXiion? ionizing photon production efficiencyphys.ionizParam.raddoublenullablee_Xiion? ionizing photon production efficiency errorstat.errordoublenullableO32? [OIII]{lambda}5008/[OII]{lambda}3727 line flux ratiospect.line.intensity;arith.ratiodoublenullablee_O32[]? [OIII]{lambda}5008/[OII]{lambda}3727 line flux ratio errorstat.errordoublenullableOII3727? Unresolved [OII] {lambda}3726,3729 doublet line flux1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_OII3727? Unresolved [OII] {lambda}3726,3729 doublet line flux error1e-23W.m**-2stat.errordoublenullableNeIII3870? Unresolved [NeIII] {lambda}3870 line flux measurement, except for the highest redshift sources (z>10)1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_NeIII3870? Unresolved [NeIII] {lambda}3870 line flux measurement error1e-23W.m**-2stat.errordoublenullableHeI3889? HeI{lambda}3889 line flux measurement1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_HeI3889? HeI{lambda}3889 line flux measurement error1e-23W.m**-2stat.errordoublenullableHdelta? Balmer H{delta} line flux1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_Hdelta? Balmer H{delta} line flux error1e-23W.m**-2stat.error;spect.linedoublenullableHgamma? Unresolved Balmer H{gamma} + auroral [OIII] {lambda}4363 line flux measurements, except for the highest redshift sources (z>9.5)1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_Hgamma? Unresolved Balmer H{gamma} + auroral [OIII] {lambda}4363 line flux measurements error1e-23W.m**-2stat.error;spect.linedoublenullableHbeta? Balmer H{beta} line flux1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_Hbeta? Balmer H{beta} line flux error1e-23W.m**-2stat.error;spect.linedoublenullableOIII4960? [OIII] {lambda}4960 line flux1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_OIII4960? [OIII] {lambda}4960 line flux error1e-23W.m**-2stat.errordoublenullableOIII5008? [OIII] {lambda}5008 line flux1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_OIII5008? [OIII] {lambda}5008 line flux error1e-23W.m**-2stat.errordoublenullableHalpha? Unresolved Balmer H{alpha}+[NII] {lambda}6585 line flux1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_Halpha? Unresolved Balmer H{alpha}+[NII] {lambda}6585 line flux error1e-23W.m**-2stat.error;spect.linedoublenullableSII6725? Unresolved [SII] {lambda}{lambda}6718,6732 doublet line flux1e-23W.m**-2phot.flux;spect.linedoublenullablee_SII6725? Unresolved [SII] {lambda}{lambda}6718,6732 doublet line flux error1e-23W.m**-2stat.errordoublenullableProgIDProgram ID under which the object was observed (from FileName)meta.id;obscharFileNameFile namemeta.id;meta.filecharn_O32[I] i for infinitymeta.notechar