The JWST Hubble Sequence: The Rest-frame Optical Evolution of Galaxy Structure at 1.5 < z < 6.5

Journal article

© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, to view a copy of the license, see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/We present results on the morphological and structural evolution of a total of 3956 galaxies observed with JWST at 1.5 109 M ⊙ at z > 3 are not dominated by irregular and peculiar structures, either visually or quantitatively, as previously thought. We find a strong dominance of morphologically selected disk galaxies up to z = 6 in this mass range. We also find that the stellar mass and star formation rate densities are dominated by disk galaxies up to z ∼ 6, demonstrating that most stars in the Universe were likely formed in a disk galaxy. We compare our results to theory to show that the fraction of types we find is predicted by cosmological simulations, and that the Hubble Sequence was already in place as early as one billion years after the Big Bang. Additionally, we make our visual classifications public for the community.Peer reviewe

Authors: Ferreira, L; Conselice, CJ; Sazonova, E; Ferrari, F; Caruana, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Journal: The Astrophysical Journal
• Volume: 955
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 94-94
• Publication date: 2023-09-22
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acec76
• EISSN: 1538-4357
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• Language: English
• Keywords: Galaxy formation and evolution; Astronomy; Stars; Universe; Galaxy; Star formation; Stellar mass; Astrophysics; Physics