Abstract
The radial gradient of gas-phase metallicity is a powerful probe of the chemical and structural evolution of star-forming galaxies, closely tied to disk formation and gas kinematics in the early Universe. We present spatially resolved chemical and dynamical properties for a sample of 25 galaxies at 0.5 ≲ z ≲ 1.7 from the MSA-3D survey. These innovative observations provide 3D spectroscopy of galaxies at a spatial resolution approaching JWST’s diffraction limit and a high spectral resolution of R ≃ 2700. The metallicity gradients measured in our galaxy sample range from −0.03 to 0.02 dex kpc−1. Most galaxies exhibit negative or flat radial gradients, indicating lower metallicity in the outskirts or uniform metallicity throughout the entire galaxy. We confirm a tight relationship between stellar mass and metallicity gradient at z ∼ 1 with small intrinsic scatter of 0.02 dex kpc−1. Our results indicate that metallicity gradients become increasingly negative as stellar mass increases, likely because the more massive galaxies tend to be more “disky.” This relationship is consistent with the predictions from cosmological hydrodynamic zoom-in simulations with strong stellar feedback. This work presents the effort to harness the multiplexing capability of the JWST NIRSpec microshutter assembly in slit-stepping mode to map the chemical and kinematic profiles of high-redshift galaxies in large samples and at high spatial and spectral resolution.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | L39 |
| Journal | Astrophysical Journal Letters |
| Volume | 978 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 10 2025 |
Funding
We thank the anonymous referee for the constructive comments, which significantly improved the manuscript. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 12373009), the CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research grant No. YSBR-062, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the science research grant from the China Manned Space Project. X.W. acknowledges the support by the Xiaomi Young Talents Program and the work carried out, in part, at the Swinburne University of Technology, sponsored by the ACAMAR visiting fellowship. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with program JWST-GO-2136. We acknowledge financial support from NASA through grant JWST-GO-2136. T.J. acknowledges support from a Chancellor\u2019s Fellowship and a Dean\u2019s Faculty Fellowship and from NASA through grant 80NSSC23K1132. C.A.F.G. was supported by NSF through grants AST-2108230 and AST-2307327, NASA through grant 21-ATP21-0036, and STScI through grant JWST-AR-03252.001-A.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science