The chemical enrichment and assembly histories of distant quiescent galaxies with JWST
One of the most remarkable discoveries since the launch of JWST is that massive galaxies formed more rapidly and quenched earlier than expected. Stellar metallicities and elemental abundances provide critical insight into these galaxies’ star formation and assembly histories. Measuring these properties is challenging, but recent ultra-deep spectroscopic surveys are finally opening a window into studying this population. In this talk, I will present results from our JWST/NIRSpec SUSPENSE program, targeting 20 massive quiescent galaxies at z=1-3. These galaxies display non-solar abundance patterns, unlike any in the nearby universe, indicating extreme star-formation histories and rapid quenching by z~4.