JWST's PEARLS: A clumpy ring galaxy at $z = 4.0148$
Fuente:
arXiv
Enregistré dans:
| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2026
|
| Sujets: | |
| Accès en ligne: | |
| Tags: |
Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
|
| _version_ | 1866918497685078016 |
|---|---|
| author | Vizgan, David Zhuang, Ming-Yang Smail, Ian Windhorst, Rogier Bowling, Gibson Cheng, Cheng Cohen, Seth Conselice, Christopher Diego, Jose Frye, Brenda Grogin, Norman Jansen, Rolf Kamieneski, Patrick Koekemoer, Anton Ortiz III, Rafael Ricotti, Massimo Sun, Bangzheng Williams, Hayley Willner, S. P. Yan, Haojing Agrawal, Aadya Solimano, Manuel Stone, Zachary Vieira, Joaquin Yang, Chentao |
| author_facet | Vizgan, David Zhuang, Ming-Yang Smail, Ian Windhorst, Rogier Bowling, Gibson Cheng, Cheng Cohen, Seth Conselice, Christopher Diego, Jose Frye, Brenda Grogin, Norman Jansen, Rolf Kamieneski, Patrick Koekemoer, Anton Ortiz III, Rafael Ricotti, Massimo Sun, Bangzheng Williams, Hayley Willner, S. P. Yan, Haojing Agrawal, Aadya Solimano, Manuel Stone, Zachary Vieira, Joaquin Yang, Chentao |
| contents | Ring galaxies are an uncommon class of galaxies whose morphology is closely related to dynamical processes that govern galaxy evolution. Some ring galaxies, known as "collisional ring galaxies", are thought to form as a consequence of head-on collisions between galaxies, and a number of high-redshift collisional ring galaxies have been discovered and/or studied in the era of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In this paper, we present HST/ACS, JWST/NIRCam, and JWST/NIRSpec observations of a candidate ring galaxy at $z_{\rm spec} = 4.0148$, previously identified as a potential gravitational lens. The galaxy exhibits a complex morphology, including three bright clumps along an apparent ring with radius $\approx 0.25$" $\simeq 1.8$ kpc. It has a total SFR $= 140^{+20}_{-30}$ ${\rm M}_{\rm \odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ and $\log(M_\ast/{\rm M}_\odot) = 10.41^{+0.11}_{-0.13}$, making it similar to other high-redshift collisional ring galaxies. Although we argue strongly in favor of the collisional ring explanation, we cannot entirely rule out a galaxy-galaxy strong lensing explanation for the system's morphology, in which a foreground galaxy at $z \simeq 1.7$ lenses a galaxy at $z \simeq 4.0$ into an Einstein ring-like configuration; to confirm the nature of this source, we require kinematic information via high spectral resolution observations. We suggest that current and future gravitational lens surveys should consider high-redshift ring galaxies as possible but significant contaminants. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_11575 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | JWST's PEARLS: A clumpy ring galaxy at $z = 4.0148$ Vizgan, David Zhuang, Ming-Yang Smail, Ian Windhorst, Rogier Bowling, Gibson Cheng, Cheng Cohen, Seth Conselice, Christopher Diego, Jose Frye, Brenda Grogin, Norman Jansen, Rolf Kamieneski, Patrick Koekemoer, Anton Ortiz III, Rafael Ricotti, Massimo Sun, Bangzheng Williams, Hayley Willner, S. P. Yan, Haojing Agrawal, Aadya Solimano, Manuel Stone, Zachary Vieira, Joaquin Yang, Chentao Astrophysics of Galaxies Ring galaxies are an uncommon class of galaxies whose morphology is closely related to dynamical processes that govern galaxy evolution. Some ring galaxies, known as "collisional ring galaxies", are thought to form as a consequence of head-on collisions between galaxies, and a number of high-redshift collisional ring galaxies have been discovered and/or studied in the era of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In this paper, we present HST/ACS, JWST/NIRCam, and JWST/NIRSpec observations of a candidate ring galaxy at $z_{\rm spec} = 4.0148$, previously identified as a potential gravitational lens. The galaxy exhibits a complex morphology, including three bright clumps along an apparent ring with radius $\approx 0.25$" $\simeq 1.8$ kpc. It has a total SFR $= 140^{+20}_{-30}$ ${\rm M}_{\rm \odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ and $\log(M_\ast/{\rm M}_\odot) = 10.41^{+0.11}_{-0.13}$, making it similar to other high-redshift collisional ring galaxies. Although we argue strongly in favor of the collisional ring explanation, we cannot entirely rule out a galaxy-galaxy strong lensing explanation for the system's morphology, in which a foreground galaxy at $z \simeq 1.7$ lenses a galaxy at $z \simeq 4.0$ into an Einstein ring-like configuration; to confirm the nature of this source, we require kinematic information via high spectral resolution observations. We suggest that current and future gravitational lens surveys should consider high-redshift ring galaxies as possible but significant contaminants. |
| title | JWST's PEARLS: A clumpy ring galaxy at $z = 4.0148$ |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11575 |