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Accepted manuscript

Less Wound and More Asymmetric: JWST Confirms the Evolution of Spiral Structure in Galaxies at z ≲ 3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2025

Ilia V. Chugunov Open the ORCID record for Ilia V. Chugunov [Opens in a new window] ,
Alexander A. Marchuk  and
Aleksandr V. Mosenkov
Ilia V. Chugunov*
Affiliation:
Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg 196140, Russia
Alexander A. Marchuk
Affiliation:
Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg 196140, Russia St. Petersburg State University, Universitetskii pr. 28, St. Petersburg 198504, Russia
Aleksandr V. Mosenkov
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, N283 ESC, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
*
Author for correspondence: I. V. Chugunov, Email: chugunov21@list.ru.
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Abstract

Spiral galaxies are ubiquitous in the local Universe. However the properties of spiral arms in them are still not well studied, and there is even less information concerning spiral structure in distant galaxies. We aim to measure the most general parameters of spiral arms in remote galaxies and trace their changes with redshift. We perform photometric decomposition, including spiral arms, for 159 galaxies from the HST COSMOS and JWST CEERS and JADES surveys, which are imaged in optical and near-infrared rest-frame wavelengths. We confirm that, in our representative sample of spiral galaxies, the pitch angles increase, and the azimuthal lengths decrease with increasing redshift, implying that the spiral structure becomes more tightly wound over time. For the spiral-to-total luminosity ratio and the spiral width-to-disc scale length ratio, we find that band-shifting effects can be as significant as, or even stronger than, evolutionary effects. Additionally, we find that spiral structure becomes more asymmetric at higher redshifts.

Keywords

galaxies: spiralgalaxies: evolutiongalaxies: high-redshiftgalaxies: structure
Type
Research Article
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Accepted manuscript , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Astronomical Society of Australia

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