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

European University Cyprus

Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH)

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

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

University of Virginia

Shunshi Hoshioka

Hiroshima University

Thomas Lai

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Y. Song

University of Virginia

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

J. Mazzarella

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Loreto Barcos-Munoz

University of Virginia

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

V. Charmandaris

European University Cyprus

Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH)

University of Crete

Justin Howell

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Anne M. Medling

University of Toledo

ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics

G. Privon

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

University of Florida

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

University of Barcelona

Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies

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

Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies

Institute of Space Sciences (ICE) - CSIC

Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC)

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 L36

Subject Categories

Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics

DOI

10.3847/2041-8213/acab61

More information

Latest update

12/1/2023