DAWN JWST Archive: Morphology from profile fitting of over 340 000 galaxies in major JWST fields

Understanding how galaxies assemble their structure and evolve morphologically over cosmic time is a central goal of galaxy evolution studies. In particular, the morphological evolution of quiescent and star-forming galaxies provides key insights into the mechanisms that regulate star formation and quenching. We present a new catalog of morphological measurements for more than 340 000 sources spanning 0 < z < 12, derived from deep JWST NIRCam imaging across four major extragalactic fields (CEERS, PRIMER–UDS, PRIMER–COSMOS, GOODS) compiled in the DAWN JWST Archive (DJA). We performed two-dimensional surface brightness fitting for all galaxies in a uniform, flux-limited sample. Each galaxy was modeled with both a Sérsic profile and a two-component (bulge and disk) decomposition, yielding consistent structural parameters, including effective radius, Sérsic index ( n S ), axis ratio, and bulge-to-total ratio ( B / T ). To demonstrate the scientific application of our morphology catalogs, we combined these measurements with DJA photometric redshifts, physical parameters and rest-frame colors, and investigated the relation between total, bulge, and disk sizes, n S , star formation activity, and redshift. Bulge-dominated galaxies (high n S and B / T ) predominantly occupy the quiescent region of the UVJ diagram, while disk-dominated galaxies are mostly star-forming. A significant bimodality persists, with quiescent disks and compact, bulge-dominated star-forming galaxies observed out to z > 3. Quiescent galaxies also show significantly higher stellar mass surface densities, nearly an order of magnitude greater at z ~ 4 than at z ~ 1. Our results confirm a strong and evolving link between morphology and star formation activity and support a scenario in which bulge growth and quenching are closely connected. This work is a highly valuable addition to the DJA, adding a morphological dimension to this rich dataset and thus enabling a wider scientific application.

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Publication Details

Journal
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Published
2025-06-19
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202555504
Citations
5
Primary Topic
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
5.77
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article

DAWN JWST Archive: Morphology from profile fitting of over 340 000 galaxies in major JWST fields

Francesco Valentino, Jasleen Matharu, Marko Shuntov, G. Magdis et al.
5 citations
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
5.77
article

DAWN JWST Archive: Morphology from profile fitting of over 340 000 galaxies in major JWST fields

Francesco Valentino, Jasleen Matharu, Marko Shuntov, G. Magdis, Pascal A. Oesch, Gabriel Brammer, Sune Toft, Kei Ito, Natalie Allen, Aurélien Genin
article en
5 citations

Abstract

Understanding how galaxies assemble their structure and evolve morphologically over cosmic time is a central goal of galaxy evolution studies. In particular, the morphological evolution of quiescent and star-forming galaxies provides key insights into the mechanisms that regulate star formation and quenching. We present a new catalog of morphological measurements for more than 340 000 sources spanning 0 < z < 12, derived from deep JWST NIRCam imaging across four major extragalactic fields (CEERS, PRIMER–UDS, PRIMER–COSMOS, GOODS) compiled in the DAWN JWST Archive (DJA). We performed two-dimensional surface brightness fitting for all galaxies in a uniform, flux-limited sample. Each galaxy was modeled with both a Sérsic profile and a two-component (bulge and disk) decomposition, yielding consistent structural parameters, including effective radius, Sérsic index ( n S ), axis ratio, and bulge-to-total ratio ( B / T ). To demonstrate the scientific application of our morphology catalogs, we combined these measurements with DJA photometric redshifts, physical parameters and rest-frame colors, and investigated the relation between total, bulge, and disk sizes, n S , star formation activity, and redshift. Bulge-dominated galaxies (high n S and B / T ) predominantly occupy the quiescent region of the UVJ diagram, while disk-dominated galaxies are mostly star-forming. A significant bimodality persists, with quiescent disks and compact, bulge-dominated star-forming galaxies observed out to z > 3. Quiescent galaxies also show significantly higher stellar mass surface densities, nearly an order of magnitude greater at z ~ 4 than at z ~ 1. Our results confirm a strong and evolving link between morphology and star formation activity and support a scenario in which bulge growth and quenching are closely connected. This work is a highly valuable addition to the DJA, adding a morphological dimension to this rich dataset and thus enabling a wider scientific application.

Astronomy and AstrophysicsVol. 699
University of Geneva (CH), University of Copenhagen (DK), École Polytechnique (FR), Technical University of Denmark (DK)
Openalex Percentile: Top 4%
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
5.77
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