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

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

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    21 Citations (Scopus)

    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.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numberL23
    JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
    Volume944
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2023

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