GOALS-JWST: NIRCam and MIRI Imaging of the Circumnuclear Starburst Ring in NGC 7469
Journal article, 2023
We present James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imaging of NGC 7469 with the Near-Infrared Camera and the Mid-InfraRed Instrument. NGC 7469 is a nearby, z = 0.01627, luminous infrared galaxy that hosts both a Seyfert Type-1.5 nucleus and a circumnuclear starburst ring with a radius of ∼0.5 kpc. The new near-infrared (NIR) JWST imaging reveals 66 star-forming regions, 37 of which were not detected by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations. Twenty-eight of the 37 sources have very red NIR colors that indicate obscurations up to A v ∼ 7 and a contribution of at least 25% from hot dust emission to the 4.4 μm band. Their NIR colors are also consistent with young (<5 Myr) stellar populations and more than half of them are coincident with the mid-infrared (MIR) emission peaks. These younger, dusty star-forming regions account for ∼6% and ∼17% of the total 1.5 and 4.4 μm luminosity of the starburst ring, respectively. Thanks to JWST, we find a significant number of young dusty sources that were previously unseen due to dust extinction. The newly identified 28 young sources are a significant increase compared to the number of HST-detected young sources (4-5). This makes the total percentage of the young population rise from ∼15% to 48%. These results illustrate the effectiveness of JWST in identifying and characterizing previously hidden star formation in the densest star-forming environments around active galactic nuclei (AGN).
Author
Thomas Bohn
Hiroshima University
H. Inami
Hiroshima University
T. Diaz-Santos
Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH)
European University Cyprus
Lee Armus
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
S. T. Linden
University of Massachusetts
U. Vivian
University of California at Irvine (UCI)
J. A. Surace
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
K. Larson
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Aaron S. Evans
University of Virginia
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Shunshi Hoshioka
Hiroshima University
Thomas Lai
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Y. Song
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
University of Virginia
J. Mazzarella
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Loreto Barcos-Munoz
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
University of Virginia
V. Charmandaris
University of Crete
Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH)
European University Cyprus
Justin Howell
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Anne M. Medling
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics
University of Toledo
G. Privon
University of Florida
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Jeffrey A. Rich
Carnegie Observatories
S. Stierwalt
Occidental College
Susanne Aalto
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Astronomy and Plasmaphysics
T. Boker
European Space Agency (ESA)
Michael J.I. Brown
Monash University
K. Iwasawa
Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies
University of Barcelona
M. A. Malkan
University of California
Paul P. van der Werf
Leiden University
P. Appleton
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Christopher C. Hayward
Flatiron Institute
F. Kemper
Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC)
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies
David R. Law
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Jason Marshall
Glendale Community College
Eric J. Murphy
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
David Sanders
Astrophysical Journal Letters
2041-8205 (ISSN) 2041-8213 (eISSN)
Vol. 942 2 L36Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)
Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics
DOI
10.3847/2041-8213/acab61