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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2023
We present an overview of the project “The Physics of Galaxy Assembly: IFS observations of high-z galaxies”, a Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) programme of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It an ambitious project aimed at investigating the internal structure of distant galaxies with the NIRSpec integral field spectrograph (IFS), having allocated 273 hours of JWST prime time. The NIRSpec capability will provide us with spatially resolved spectroscopy in the 1-5 μm range of a sample of over forty galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei in the redshift range 3 < z 9. IFS observations of individual galaxies will enable us to investigate in detail the most important physical processes driving galaxy evolution across the cosmic epoch. More in detail, the main specific objectives are: to trace the distribution of star formation, to map the resolved properties of the stellar populations, to trace the gas kinematics (i.e. velocity fields, velocity dispersion) and, hence, determine dynamical masses and also identify non-virial motions (outflow and inflows), and to map metallicity gradients and dust attenuation.