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The structure of massive star-forming galaxies from JWST and ALMA: Dusty, high-redshift disc galaxies

Gillman, Steven; Smail, Ian; Gullberg, Bitten; Swinbank, A. M.; Vijayan, Aswin P.; Lee, Minju; Brammer, Gabe; Dudzevičiūtė, Ugnė; Greve, Thomas R.; Almaini, Omar; Brinch, Malte; Chapman, Scott C.; Chen, Chian-Chou; Ikarashi, Soh; Matsuda, Yuichi; Wang, Wei-Hao; Walter, Fabian; van der Werf, Paul P.

The structure of massive star-forming galaxies from JWST and ALMA: Dusty, high-redshift disc galaxies Thumbnail


Authors

Steven Gillman

Profile image of Ian Smail

Ian Smail ian.smail@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

Bitten Gullberg

Aswin P. Vijayan

Minju Lee

Gabe Brammer

Ugnė Dudzevičiūtė

Thomas R. Greve

Omar Almaini

Malte Brinch

Scott C. Chapman

Chian-Chou Chen

Soh Ikarashi

Yuichi Matsuda

Wei-Hao Wang

Fabian Walter

Paul P. van der Werf



Abstract

We present an analysis of the JWST NIRCam and MIRI morphological and structural properties of 80 massive (log10(M*[M⊙]) = 11.2 ± 0.1) dusty star-forming galaxies at z = 2.7−0.7+1.2, identified as sub-millimetre galaxies (SMGs) by ALMA, which have been observed as part of the JWST PRIMER project. To compare the structure of these massive, active galaxies to more typical, less actively star-forming galaxies, we defined two comparison samples. The first of 850 field galaxies matched in specific star formation rate and redshift and the second of 80 field galaxies matched in stellar mass. From the visual classification of the SMGs, we have identified 20 ± 5% as candidate late-stage major mergers, a further 40 ± 10% as potential minor mergers, and 40 ± 10% that have comparatively undisturbed disc-like morphologies, with no obvious massive neighbours on ≲20–30 kpc (projected) scales. These rates are comparable to those for the field samples and indicate that the majority of the sub-millimetre-detected galaxies are not late-stage major mergers, but have interaction rates similar to the general field population at z ∼ 2–3. Through a multi-wavelength morphological analysis, using parametric and non-parametric techniques, we establish that SMGs have comparable near-infrared, mass-normalised sizes to the less active population, R50F444W = 2.7 ± 0.2 kpc versus RF444W50 = 3.1 ± 0.1 kpc, but exhibit lower Sérsic indices, consistent with bulge-less discs: nF444W = 1.1 ± 0.1, compared to nF444W = 1.9 ± 0.1 for the less active field galaxies and nF444W = 2.8 ± 0.2 for the most massive field galaxies. The SMGs exhibit greater single-Sérsic fit residuals and their morphologies are more structured at 2 μm relative to 4 μm when compared to the field galaxies. This appears to be caused by significant structured dust content in the SMGs and we find evidence for dust reddening as the origin of the morphological differences by identifying a strong correlation between the F200W−F444W pixel colour and the 870 μm surface brightness using high-resolution ALMA observations. We conclude that SMGs and both massive and less massive star-forming galaxies at the same epochs share a common disc-like structure, but the weaker bulge components (and potentially lower black hole masses) of the SMGs result in their gas discs being less stable. Consequently, the combination of high gas masses and instabilities triggered either secularly or by minor external perturbations results in higher levels of activity (and dust content) in SMGs compared to typical star-forming galaxies.

Citation

Gillman, S., Smail, I., Gullberg, B., Swinbank, A. M., Vijayan, A. P., Lee, M., Brammer, G., Dudzevičiūtė, U., Greve, T. R., Almaini, O., Brinch, M., Chapman, S. C., Chen, C.-C., Ikarashi, S., Matsuda, Y., Wang, W.-H., Walter, F., & van der Werf, P. P. (2024). The structure of massive star-forming galaxies from JWST and ALMA: Dusty, high-redshift disc galaxies. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 691, Article A299. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451006

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 13, 2024
Online Publication Date Nov 20, 2024
Publication Date 2024-11
Deposit Date Jan 15, 2025
Publicly Available Date Jan 15, 2025
Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics
Print ISSN 0004-6361
Electronic ISSN 1432-0746
Publisher EDP Sciences
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 691
Article Number A299
DOI https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451006
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3335812

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This article is published in open access under the Subscribe to Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.





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