PHANGS–JWST First Results: The Influence of Stellar Clusters on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Nearby Galaxies

Creators: Dale, Daniel A.; Boquien, Médéric; Barnes, Ashley T.; Belfiore, Francesco; Bigiel, Frank; Cao, Yixian; Chandar, Rupali; Chastenet, Jérémy; Chevance, Mélanie; Deger, Sinan; Egorov, Oleg V.; Grasha, Kathryn; Groves, Brent; Hassani, Hamid; Henny, Kiana F.; Klessen, Ralf S.; Kreckel, Kathryn; Kruijssen, J. M. Diederik; Larson, Kirsten L.; Lee, Janice C.; Leroy, Adam K.; Liu, Daizhong; Murphy, Eric J.; Rosolowsky, Erik; Sandstrom, Karin; Schinnerer, Eva; Sutter, Jessica; Thilker, David A.; Watkins, Elizabeth J.; Whitmore, Bradley C.; Williams, Thomas G.

Abstract

We present a comparison of theoretical predictions of dust continuum and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission with new JWST observations in three nearby galaxies: NGC 628, NGC 1365, and NGC 7496. Our analysis focuses on a total of 1063 compact stellar clusters and 2654 stellar associations previously characterized by the Hubble Space Telescope in the three galaxies. We find that the distributions and trends in the observed PAH-focused infrared colors generally agree with theoretical expectations, and that the bulk of the observations is more aligned with models of larger, ionized PAHs. These JWST data usher in a new era of probing interstellar dust and studying how the intense radiation fields near stellar clusters and associations play a role in shaping the physical properties of PAHs.

Additional Information

© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST and Hubble Space Telescopes. 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 and NASA contract NAS 5-26555 for HST. The JWST observations are associated with Program 2107, and those from HST with Program 15454. The specific observations analyzed can be accessed via doi:10.17909/9bdf-jn24. The HST images and catalogs can be accessed via doi:10.17909/t9-r08f-dq31 and doi:10.17909/jray-9798, respectively. F.B. would like to acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union2019's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 726384/Empire). M.B. acknowledges support from FONDECYT regular grant 1211000 and by the ANID BASAL project FB210003. J.C. acknowledges support from ERC starting grant #851622 DustOrigin. M.C. gratefully acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant number CH2137/1-1). K.G. is supported by the Australian Research Council through the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship DE220100766 funded by the Australian Government. K.G. is supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. J.M.D.K. gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program via the ERC Starting Grant MUSTANG (grant agreement number 714907). COOL Research DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization supporting research in astrophysics aimed at uncovering our cosmic origins. K.K. and O.E. gratefully acknowledge funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) in the form of an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant number KR4598/2-1, PI: Kreckel). R.S.K. acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council via the ERC Synergy Grant "ECOGAL" (project ID 855130), from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) via the Collaborative Research Center "The Milky Way System" (SFB 881—funding ID 138713538—subprojects A1, B1, B2, and B8) and from the Heidelberg Cluster of Excellence (EXC 2181—390900948) "STRUCTURES," funded by the German Excellence Strategy. R.S.K. also thanks the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action for funding in the project "MAINN" (funding ID 50OO2206). A.K.L. gratefully acknowledges support by grants 1653300 and 2205628 from the National Science Foundation, by award JWST-GO-02107.009-A, and by a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. E.R. acknowledges the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), funding reference number RGPIN-2022-03499. E.J.W. acknowledges the funding provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—Project-ID 138713538—SFB 881 ("The Milky Way System," subproject P1). T.G.W. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union2019's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 694343). D.A.D. acknowledges support from JWST‐GO‐02107.005‐A.

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