Conselice, CJ, Basham, JTF, Bettaney, DO, Ferreira, L, Adams, N, Harvey, T, Ormerod, K, Caruana, J, Bluck, AFL, Li, Q, Roper, WJ, Trussler, J, Irodotou, D and Austin, D (2024) EPOCHS Paper V. The dependence of galaxy formation on galaxy structure at z < 7 from JWST observations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 531 (4). pp. 4857-4875. ISSN 0035-8711

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Abstract

We measure the broad impact of galaxy structure on galaxy formation by examining the ongoing star formation and integrated star formation history as revealed through the stellar masses of galaxies at z < 7 based on JWST CEERS data from the Extended Groth Strip (EGS). Using the morphological catalog of 3965 visually classified JWST galaxies from Ferreira et al. (2023), we investigate the evolution of stars, and when they form, as a function of morphological type as well as galaxies classified as passive and starburst through spectral energy distributions. Although disc galaxies dominate the structures of galaxies at z < 7, we find that these discs are in general either 'passive', or on the main sequence of star formation, and do not contain a large population of starburst galaxies. We also find no significant correlation between morphological type and the star formation rate or colours of galaxies at z < 7. In fact, we find that the morphologically classified 'spheroids' tend to be blue and are not found to be predominately passive systems at z > 1.5. We also find that the stellar mass function for disc galaxies does not evolve significantly during this time, whereas other galaxy types, such as the peculiar population, evolve dramatically, declining at lower redshifts. This indicates that massive peculiars are more common at higher redshifts. We further find that up to z ∼7, the specific star formation rate (sSFR) does not vary with visual morphology, but strongly depends on stellar mass and internal galaxy mass density. This demonstrates that at early epochs galaxy assembly is a mass-driven, rather than a morphologically driven process. Quenching of star formation is therefore a mass-dominated process throughout the universe's history, likely due to the presence of supermassive black holes.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	5101 Astronomical Sciences; 51 Physical Sciences; 5101 Astronomical Sciences; 51 Physical Sciences; 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences; Astronomy & Astrophysics; 5101 Astronomical sciences; 5107 Particle and high energy physics; 5109 Space sciences
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions:	Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher:	Oxford University Press (OUP)
SWORD Depositor:	A Symplectic
Date Deposited:	25 Apr 2025 10:35
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2025 10:45
DOI or ID number:	10.1093/mnras/stae1180
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26250

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