DAWN JWST Archive: Morphology from profile fitting of over 340 000 galaxies in major JWST fields: Morphology evolution with redshift and galaxy type

  • Aurélien Genin*
  • , Marko Shuntov*
  • , Gabe Brammer
  • , Natalie Allen
  • , Kei Ito
  • , Georgios Magdis
  • , Jasleen Matharu
  • , Pascal A. Oesch
  • , Sune Toft
  • , Francesco Valentino
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Understanding how galaxies assemble their structure and evolve morphologically over cosmic time is a central goal of galaxy evolution studies. In particular, the morphological evolution of quiescent and star-forming galaxies provides key insights into the mechanisms that regulate star formation and quenching. We present a new catalog of morphological measurements for more than 340 000 sources spanning 0 < z < 12, derived from deep JWST NIRCam imaging across four major extragalactic fields (CEERS, PRIMER–UDS, PRIMER–COSMOS, GOODS) compiled in the DAWN JWST Archive (DJA). We performed two-dimensional surface brightness fitting for all galaxies in a uniform, flux-limited sample. Each galaxy was modeled with both a Sérsic profile and a two-component (bulge and disk) decomposition, yielding consistent structural parameters, including effective radius, Sérsic index (nS ), axis ratio, and bulge-to-total ratio (B/T). To demonstrate the scientific application of our morphology catalogs, we combined these measurements with DJA photometric redshifts, physical parameters and rest-frame colors, and investigated the relation between total, bulge, and disk sizes, nS, star formation activity, and redshift. Bulge-dominated galaxies (high nS and B/T) predominantly occupy the quiescent region of the UVJ diagram, while disk-dominated galaxies are mostly star-forming. A significant bimodality persists, with quiescent disks and compact, bulge-dominated star-forming galaxies observed out to z > 3. Quiescent galaxies also show significantly higher stellar mass surface densities, nearly an order of magnitude greater at z ~ 4 than at z ~ 1. Our results confirm a strong and evolving link between morphology and star formation activity and support a scenario in which bulge growth and quenching are closely connected. This work is a highly valuable addition to the DJA, adding a morphological dimension to this rich dataset and thus enabling a wider scientific application.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberA343
JournalAstronomy and Astrophysics
Volume699
Number of pages13
ISSN0004-6361
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2025

Keywords

  • Catalogs
  • Galaxies: evolution
  • Galaxies: structure
  • Techniques: image processing

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