CEERS Key Paper. IV. A Triality in the Nature of HST-dark Galaxies

The new capabilities that JWST offers in the near- and mid-infrared (IR) are used to investigate in unprecedented detail the nature of optical/near-IR-faint, mid-IR-bright sources, with HST-dark galaxies among them. We gather JWST data from the CEERS survey in the Extended Groth Strip, jointly with HST data, and analyze spatially resolved optical-to-mid-IR spectral energy distributions to estimate photometric redshifts in two dimensions and stellar population properties on a pixel-by-pixel basis for red galaxies detected by NIRCam. We select 138 galaxies with F150W - F356W > 1.5 mag and F356W < 27.5 mag. The nature of these sources is threefold: (1) 71% are dusty star-forming galaxies (SFGs) at 2 < z < 6 with 9-1); (2) 18% are quiescent/dormant (i.e., subject to reignition/rejuvenation) galaxies (QGs) at 3 < z < 5, with logM?/M circle dot similar to 10 8 M (circle dot), 60% had assembled 10(9) M (circle dot), and 10% up to 10(10) M (circle dot) (in situ or ex situ).