Takahiro Morishita, Charlotte A. Mason, Kimi C. Kreilgaard, Michele Trenti, Tommaso Treu, Benedetta Vulcani, Yechi Zhang, Abdurro’uf, Anahita Alavi, Hakim Atek, Yannick Bahé, Maruša Bradač, Larry D. Bradley, Andrew J. Bunker, Dan Coe, James Colbert, Viola Gelli, Matthew J. Hayes, Tucker Jones, Tadayuki Kodama, Nicha Leethochawalit, Zhaoran Liu, Matthew A. Malkan, Vihang Mehta, Benjamin Metha, Andrew B. Newman, Marc Rafelski, Guido Roberts-Borsani, Michael J. Rutkowski, Claudia Scarlata, Massimo Stiavelli, Ryo A. Sutanto, Kosuke Takahashi, Harry I. Teplitz and Xin Wang
{"title":"BEACON: JWST NIRCam Pure-parallel Imaging Survey. I. Survey Design and Initial Results","authors":"Takahiro Morishita, Charlotte A. Mason, Kimi C. Kreilgaard, Michele Trenti, Tommaso Treu, Benedetta Vulcani, Yechi Zhang, Abdurro’uf, Anahita Alavi, Hakim Atek, Yannick Bahé, Maruša Bradač, Larry D. Bradley, Andrew J. Bunker, Dan Coe, James Colbert, Viola Gelli, Matthew J. Hayes, Tucker Jones, Tadayuki Kodama, Nicha Leethochawalit, Zhaoran Liu, Matthew A. Malkan, Vihang Mehta, Benjamin Metha, Andrew B. Newman, Marc Rafelski, Guido Roberts-Borsani, Michael J. Rutkowski, Claudia Scarlata, Massimo Stiavelli, Ryo A. Sutanto, Kosuke Takahashi, Harry I. Teplitz and Xin Wang","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adbbdc","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adbbdc","url":null,"abstract":"We introduce the Bias-free Extragalactic Analysis for Cosmic Origins with NIRCam (BEACON) survey, a JWST Cycle 2 program allocated up to 600 pure-parallel hours of observations. BEACON explores high-latitude areas of the sky with JWST/NIRCam over ∼100 independent sight lines, totaling ∼0.3 deg2, reaching a median F444W depth of ≈28.2 AB mag (5σ). Based on existing JWST observations in legacy fields, we estimate that BEACON will photometrically identify 25–150 galaxies at z > 10 and 500–1000 at z ∼ 7–10 uniquely enabled by an efficient multiple filter configuration spanning 0.9–5.0 μm. The expected sample size of z > 10 galaxies will allow us to obtain robust number density estimates and to discriminate between different models of early star formation. In this paper, we present an overview of the survey design and initial results using the first 19 fields. We present 129 galaxy candidates at z ≳7 identified in those fields, including 11 galaxies at z ≳10 and several UV-luminous (MUV < −21 mag) galaxies at z ∼ 8. The number densities of z < 13 galaxies inferred from the initial fields are overall consistent with those in the literature. Despite reaching a considerably large volume (∼105 Mpc3), however, we find no galaxy candidates at z > 13, providing us with a complimentary insight into early galaxy evolution with minimal cosmic variance. We publish imaging and catalog data products for these initial fields. Upon survey completion, all BEACON data will be coherently processed and distributed to the community along with catalogs for redshift and other physical quantities.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143841074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Relativistic Outflow Driven by the Large-scale Magnetic Field from an Accretion Disk","authors":"Wei Xie and Wei-Hua Lei","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adc100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc100","url":null,"abstract":"Outflows/jets are ubiquitous in a wide range of astrophysical objects, yet the mechanisms responsible for their generation remain elusive. One hypothesis is that they are magnetically driven. Based on general relativistic MHD equations, we establish a formulation to describe the outflows driven by large-scale magnetic fields from the accretion disk in Schwarzschild spacetime. The outflow solution manifests as a contour level of a “Bernoulli” function, which is determined by ensuring that it passes through both the slow and fast magnetosonic points. This approach is a general relativistic extension to the classical treatment of X. Cao & H. C. Spruit. The initial plasma β that permits magnetically driven outflow solutions is constrained, with the slow magnetosonic point above the footpoint setting an upper limit (βb ≲ 2) and the Alfvén point inside the light cylinder setting a lower limit (βb ≳ 0.02). The higher the magnetization, the higher the temperature allowed, leading to relativistic outflows/jets. We investigate the relativistic outflows/jets of several typical objects, such as active galactic nuclei, X-ray binaries, and gamma-ray bursts. The results indicate that all of these phenomena require strongly magnetized, high-temperature outflows as initial conditions, suggesting a potential association between the production of relativistic outflows/jets and corona-like structures.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143841075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Demarcation Criterion for Hydrogen Burning of Millinovae","authors":"Izumi Hachisu and Mariko Kato","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adc107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc107","url":null,"abstract":"Millinovae are a new class of transient supersoft X-ray sources with no clear signature of mass ejection. They show similar triangle shapes of V/I band light curves with 1000 times fainter peaks than typical classical novae. Maccarone et al. regarded the prototype millinova, ASASSN-16oh, as a dwarf nova and interpreted the supersoft X-rays to originate from an accretion belt on a white dwarf (WD). Kato et al. proposed a nova model induced by high-rate mass accretion during a dwarf nova outburst; the X-rays originate from the photosphere of a hydrogen-burning hot WD, whereas the V/I band photons are from the irradiated accretion disk. Because each peak brightness differs largely from millinova to millinova, we suspect that not all millinova candidates host a hydrogen-burning WD. Based on the light-curve analysis of the classical nova KT Eri that has a bright disk, we find that the disk is more than 2 magnitudes brighter when the disk is irradiated by the hydrogen-burning WD than when not irradiated. We present the demarcation criterion for hydrogen burning to be , where Iq and are the I magnitudes in quiescence and at maximum light, respectively. Among many candidates, this requirement is satisfied with the two millinovae in which soft X-rays were detected.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143837166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lin He, Zhiyuan Li, Meicun Hou, Min Du, Taotao Fang and Wei Cui
{"title":"Probing the Hot Gaseous Halo of the Low-mass Disk Galaxy NGC 7793 with eROSITA and Chandra","authors":"Lin He, Zhiyuan Li, Meicun Hou, Min Du, Taotao Fang and Wei Cui","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adc0a0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc0a0","url":null,"abstract":"Galaxy formation models predict that local galaxies are surrounded by hot X-ray-emitting halos, which are technically difficult to detect due to their extended and low surface brightness nature. Previous X-ray studies have mostly focused on disk galaxies more massive than the Milky Way, with essentially no consensus on the halo X-ray properties at the lower mass end. We utilize the early-released eROSITA and archival Chandra observations to analyze the diffuse X-ray emission of NGC 7793, a nearby spiral galaxy with an estimated stellar mass of only 3.2 × 109M⊙. We find evidence for extraplanar hot gas emission from both the radial and vertical soft X-ray intensity profiles, which spreads up to a galactocentric distance of ∼6 kpc, nearly 30% more extended than its stellar disk. Analysis of the eROSITA spectra indicates that the hot gas can be characterized by a temperature of keV, with 0.5–2 keV unabsorbed luminosity of 1.3 × 1038 erg s−1. We compare our results with the IllustrisTNG simulations and find overall consistence on the disk scale, whereas excessive emission at large radii is predicted by TNG50. This work provides the latest detection of hot corona around a low-mass galaxy, putting new constraints on state-of-the-art cosmological simulations. We also verify the detectability of hot circumgalactic medium around even low-mass spirals with future high-resolution X-ray spectrometers such as the Hot Universe Baryon Surveyor.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143837162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"V1047 Cen: The First Z And-type Outburst Observed in the Classical Nova Binary","authors":"Augustin Skopal and Natalia Shagatova","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adc0f6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc0f6","url":null,"abstract":"In 2019, the classical nova V1047 Cen experienced an unusual outburst, the nature of which has not yet been clearly determined. In this paper, we show that the 2019 V1047 Cen outburst is of Z And-type—a type that is characteristic of and has so far been observed only in symbiotic binaries. We support our claim by modeling the near-ultraviolet to near-infrared spectral energy distribution, which revealed a close similarity between the fundamental parameters and the mass-loss rate of the burning white dwarf (WD) during the 2019 V1047 Cen outburst and those measured during Z And-type outbursts in symbiotic stars. All parameters are in good agreement with the theoretical prediction when the accretion rate exceeds the stable burning limit for WDs with masses ≲0.7 M⊙. Our analysis showed that after a nova explosion, the Z And-type outburst can occur not only in symbiotic binaries, but also in short-period cataclysmic variables, when the accretion-powered system changes to a nuclear-powered one as a consequence of the donor’s reaction to the nova explosion. Such a development promotes the production of Type Ia supernovae.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143837164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Fougères, M. L. Avila, A. Psaltis, M. Anastasiou, S. Bae, L. Balliet, K. Bhatt, L. Dienis, H. Jayatissa, V. Karayonchev, P. Mohr, F. Montes, D. Neto, F. de Oliveira Santos, W.-J. Ong, K. E. Rehm, W. Reviol, D. Santiago-Gonzalez, N. Sensharma, R. S. Sidhu and I. A. Tolstukhin
{"title":"First Measurement of 87Rb(α, xn) Cross Sections at Weak r-process Energies in Supernova ν-driven Ejecta to Investigate Elemental Abundances in Low-metallicity Stars","authors":"C. Fougères, M. L. Avila, A. Psaltis, M. Anastasiou, S. Bae, L. Balliet, K. Bhatt, L. Dienis, H. Jayatissa, V. Karayonchev, P. Mohr, F. Montes, D. Neto, F. de Oliveira Santos, W.-J. Ong, K. E. Rehm, W. Reviol, D. Santiago-Gonzalez, N. Sensharma, R. S. Sidhu and I. A. Tolstukhin","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adc253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc253","url":null,"abstract":"Observed abundances of Z ∼ 40 elements in metal-poor stars vary from star to star, indicating that the rapid and slow neutron capture processes may not contribute alone to the synthesis of elements beyond iron. The weak r-process was proposed to produce Z ∼ 40 elements in a subset of old stars. Thought to occur in the ν-driven ejecta of a core-collapse supernova, (α, xn) reactions would drive the nuclear flow toward heavier masses at T = 2−5 GK. However, current comparisons between modeled and observed yields do not bring satisfactory insights into the stellar environment, mainly due to the uncertainties of the nuclear physics inputs where the dispersion in a given reaction rate often exceeds 1 order of magnitude. Involved rates are calculated with the statistical model where the choice of an α-optical-model potential (αOMP) leads to such a poor precision. The first experiment on 87Rb(α, xn) reactions at weak r-process energies is reported here. Total inclusive cross sections were assessed at Ec.m. = 8.1−13 MeV (3.7−7.6 GK) with the active target MUlti-Sampling Ionization Chamber. With an N = 50 seed nucleus, the measured values agree with statistical model estimates using the αOMP Atomki-V2. A reevaluated reaction rate was incorporated into new nucleosynthesis calculations, focusing on ν-driven ejecta conditions known to be sensitive to this specific rate. These conditions were found to fail to reproduce the lighter heavy element abundances in metal-poor stars.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wataru Ooyama, Riouhei Nakatani, Takashi Hosokawa, Hiroto Mitani and Neal J. Turner
{"title":"Secret of Longevity: Protoplanetary Disks as a Source of Gas in Debris Disks","authors":"Wataru Ooyama, Riouhei Nakatani, Takashi Hosokawa, Hiroto Mitani and Neal J. Turner","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adbbb8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adbbb8","url":null,"abstract":"While protoplanetary disks (PPDs) are generally thought to disperse within several million years, recent observations have revealed gas in their older counterparts, debris disks. The origin of this gas remains uncertain, with one possibility being the unexpectedly long survival of PPDs (the primordial-origin scenario). To explore the plausibility of this scenario, we conduct 1D disk evolution simulations, varying parameters like stellar mass, disk mass, turbulent stress, and the model of magnetohydrodynamic winds, while incorporating stellar evolution to account for time-varying photoevaporation rates. Our focus is on disks where small grains are depleted, as these are potentially long lived due to reduced far-ultraviolet photoevaporation. Our results show that gas in these disks can survive beyond 10 Myr regardless of the stellar mass, provided they are initially massive (Mdisk ≈ 0.1 M*) with relatively weak turbulent stress (α ≪ 10−2). The longest lifetimes are consistently found for M* = 2 M⊙ across a wide parameter space, with gas typically persisting at ∼10–103 au. Roughly estimated CO masses for these disks fall within the observed range for the most massive gas-rich debris disks around early A stars. These alignments support the plausibility of the primordial-origin scenario. Additionally, our model predicts that accretion persists for as long as the disk survives, which could explain the accretion signatures detected in old disks hosted by low-mass stars, including Peter Pan disks. Our finding also suggests that ongoing accretion may exist in gas-rich debris disks. Thus, searching for accretion signatures could be a key to determining the origins of gas in debris disks.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143837161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Jimena Rodríguez, Janice C. Lee, Remy Indebetouw, B. C. Whitmore, Daniel Maschmann, Thomas G. Williams, Rupali Chandar, A. T. Barnes, Oleg Y. Gnedin, Karin M. Sandstrom, Erik Rosolowsky, Adam K. Leroy, David A. Thilker, Hwihyun Kim, Jiayi Sun, Ralf S. Klessen, Brent Groves, Aida Wofford, Médéric Boquien, Daniel A. Dale, Leonardo Úbeda, Kirsten L. Larson, Kathryn Grasha, Kelsey E. Johnson, Rebecca C. Levy, Frank Bigiel, Hamid Hassani and Sumit K. Sarbadhicary
{"title":"Tracing the Earliest Stages of Star and Cluster Formation in 19 Nearby Galaxies with PHANGS-JWST and HST: Compact 3.3 μm Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Emitters and Their Relation to the Optical Census of Star Clusters","authors":"M. Jimena Rodríguez, Janice C. Lee, Remy Indebetouw, B. C. Whitmore, Daniel Maschmann, Thomas G. Williams, Rupali Chandar, A. T. Barnes, Oleg Y. Gnedin, Karin M. Sandstrom, Erik Rosolowsky, Adam K. Leroy, David A. Thilker, Hwihyun Kim, Jiayi Sun, Ralf S. Klessen, Brent Groves, Aida Wofford, Médéric Boquien, Daniel A. Dale, Leonardo Úbeda, Kirsten L. Larson, Kathryn Grasha, Kelsey E. Johnson, Rebecca C. Levy, Frank Bigiel, Hamid Hassani and Sumit K. Sarbadhicary","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adbb69","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adbb69","url":null,"abstract":"The earliest stages of star and cluster formation are hidden within dense cocoons of gas and dust, limiting their detection at optical wavelengths. With the unprecedented infrared capabilities of JWST, we can now observe dust-enshrouded star formation with ∼10 pc resolution out to ∼20 Mpc. Early findings from PHANGS-JWST suggest that 3.3 μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission can identify star clusters in their dust-embedded phases. Here, we extend this analysis to 19 galaxies from the PHANGS-JWST Cycle 1 Treasury survey, providing the first characterization of compact sources exhibiting 3.3 μm PAH emission across a diverse sample of nearby star-forming galaxies. We establish a selection criteria based on a median color threshold of F300M − F335M = 0.67 at F335M = 20 and identify 1816 sources. These sources are predominantly located in dust lanes, spiral arms, rings, and galaxy centers, with ∼87% showing concentration indices (CIs) similar to optically detected star clusters. Comparison with the PHANGS-HST catalogs suggests that PAH emission fades within ∼3 Myr. The Hα equivalent width of PAH emitters is 1–2.8 times higher than that of young PHANGS-HST clusters, providing evidence that PAH emitters are on average younger. Analysis of the bright portions of luminosity functions (which should not suffer from incompleteness) shows that young dusty clusters may increase the number of optically visible ≤3 Myr old clusters in PHANGS-HST by a factor between ∼1.8× and 8.5×.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143832360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Critical Role of Dust on the [O iii] Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function’s Bright-end Cutoff","authors":"George H. Jacoby and Robin Ciardullo","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/adc0fb","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc0fb","url":null,"abstract":"We examine the relationship between circumnebular extinction and core mass for sets of [O iii]-bright planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Large Magellanic Cloud and M31. We confirm that for PNe within 1 magnitude of the planetary nebula luminosity function’s (PNLF’s) bright-end cutoff magnitude (M*), higher core-mass PNe are disproportionally affected by greater circumnebular extinction. We show that this result can explain why the PNLF cutoff is so insensitive to population age. In younger populations, the higher-mass, higher-luminosity cores experience greater circumnebular extinction from the dust created by their asymptotic giant branch (AGB) progenitors compared to the lower-mass cores. We further show that when our core-mass–nebular extinction law is combined with post-AGB stellar evolutionary models, the result is a large range of population ages where the brightest PNe all have nearly identical [O iii] luminosities. Finally, we note that while there is some uncertainty about whether the oldest stellar populations can produce PNe as bright as M*, this issue is resolved if the initial–final mass relation (IFMR) for the lowest-mass stars results in slightly more massive cores, as observed in some clusters. Alternatively, introducing a small amount of intrinsic scatter (0.022 M⊙) into the IFMR also addresses this uncertainty.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143832466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ivana Barišić, Tucker Jones, Kris Mortensen, Themiya Nanayakkara, Yuguang Chen, Ryan Sanders, James S. Bullock, Kevin Bundy, Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, Karl Glazebrook, Alaina Henry, Mengting Ju, Matthew Malkan, Takahiro Morishita, Danail Obreschkow, Namrata Roy, Juan M. Espejo Salcedo, Alice E. Shapley, Tommaso Treu, Xin Wang and Kyle B. Westfall
{"title":"MSA-3D: Dissecting Galaxies at z ∼ 1 with High Spatial and Spectral Resolution","authors":"Ivana Barišić, Tucker Jones, Kris Mortensen, Themiya Nanayakkara, Yuguang Chen, Ryan Sanders, James S. Bullock, Kevin Bundy, Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, Karl Glazebrook, Alaina Henry, Mengting Ju, Matthew Malkan, Takahiro Morishita, Danail Obreschkow, Namrata Roy, Juan M. Espejo Salcedo, Alice E. Shapley, Tommaso Treu, Xin Wang and Kyle B. Westfall","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/ada617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ada617","url":null,"abstract":"Integral field spectroscopy (IFS) is a powerful tool for understanding the formation of galaxies across cosmic history. We present the observing strategy and first results of MSA-3D, a novel JWST program using multi-object spectroscopy in a slit-stepping strategy to produce IFS data cubes. The program observed 43 normal star-forming galaxies at redshifts 0.5 ≲ z ≲ 1.5, corresponding to the epoch when spiral thin-disk galaxies of the modern Hubble sequence are thought to emerge, obtaining kiloparsec-scale maps of rest-frame optical nebular emission lines with spectral resolution R ≃ 2700. Here we describe the multiplexed slit-stepping method, which is >15 times more efficient than the NIRSpec IFS mode for our program. As an example of the data quality, we present a case study of an individual galaxy at z = 1.104 (stellar mass M* = 1010.3M⊙, star formation rate, SFR = 3M⊙ yr−1) with prominent face-on spiral structure. We show that the galaxy exhibits a rotationally supported disk with moderate velocity dispersion ( km s−1), a negative radial metallicity gradient (−0.020 ± 0.002 dex kpc−1), a dust attenuation gradient, and an exponentially decreasing SFR density profile that closely matches the stellar continuum. These properties are characteristic of local spirals, indicating that mature galaxies are in place at z ∼ 1. We also describe the customized data reduction and original cube-building software pipelines that we have developed to exploit the powerful slit-stepping technique. Our results demonstrate the ability of JWST slit-stepping to study galaxy populations at intermediate to high redshifts, with data quality similar to current surveys of the z ∼ 0.1 Universe.","PeriodicalId":501813,"journal":{"name":"The Astrophysical Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143832502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}