The dust-continuum size of TNG50 galaxies at $z=1-5$: a comparison with the distribution of stellar light, stars, dust and H${}_2$

Abstract

We present predictions for the extent of the dust-continuum emission of thousands of main-sequence galaxies drawn from the TNG50 simulation between $z=1-5$. To this aim, we couple the radiative transfer code SKIRT to the output of the TNG50 simulation and measure the dust-continuum half-light radius of the modeled galaxies, assuming a Milky Way dust type and a metallicity dependent dust-to-metal ratio. The dust-continuum half-light radius at observed-frame 850 $\mu$m is up to $\sim$75 per cent larger than the stellar half-mass radius, but significantly more compact than the observed-frame 1.6 $\mu$m (roughly corresponding to H-band) half-light radius, particularly towards high redshifts: the compactness compared to the 1.6 $\mu$m emission increases with redshift. This is driven by obscuration of stellar light from the galaxy centres, which increases the apparent extent of 1.6 $\mu$m disk sizes relative to that at 850 $\mu$m. The difference in relative extents increases with redshift because the observed-frame 1.6 $\mu$m emission stems from ever shorter wavelength stellar emission. These results suggest that the compact dust-continuum emission observed in $z>1$ galaxies is not (necessarily) evidence of the buildup of a dense central stellar component. We also find that the dust-continuum half-light radius very closely follows the radius containing half the star formation in galaxies, indicating that single band dust-continuum emission is a good tracer of the location of (obscured) star formation. The dust-continuum emission is more compact than the H2 mass (for galaxies at $z\ge 2$) and the underlying dust mass. The dust emission strongly correlates with locations with the highest dust temperatures, which do not need to be the locations where most H${}_2$ and/or dust is located. The presented results are a common feature of main-sequence galaxies.

Submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (42)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Star Formation in AEGIS Field Galaxies since z=1.1 : The Dominance of Gradually Declining Star Formation, and the Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• Simulating galaxy formation with black hole driven thermal and kinetic feedback
• Constraining the Low-Mass Slope of the Star Formation Sequence at 0.5<z<2.5
• The Role of Pressure in GMC Formation II: The H_2 - Pressure Relation
• The Cosmic Baryon and Metal Cycles
• SKIRT: an Advanced Dust Radiative Transfer Code with a User-Friendly Architecture
• Sunrise: Polychromatic Dust Radiative Transfer in Arbitrary Geometries
• An ALMA survey of submillimetre galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: High resolution 870um source counts
• Modelling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies: IV The Controlling Parameters of the Starburst SED
• The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: ALMA resolves the rest-frame far-infrared emission of sub-millimeter galaxies
• Environmental Dependence of the Kennicutt-Schmidt Relation in Galaxies
• Vigorous star formation with low efficiency in massive disk galaxies at z=1.5
• High-redshift star formation in the ALMA era
• The Constant Average Relationship between Dust-obscured Star Formation and Stellar Mass from $z=0$ to $z=2.5$
• Sub-kpc ALMA imaging of compact star-forming galaxies at z~2.5: revealing the formation of dense galactic cores in the progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
• The kiloparsec-scale star formation law at redshift 4: wide-spread, highly efficient star formation in the dust-obscured starburst galaxy GN20
• Bulge-forming galaxies with an extended rotating disk at z~2
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey UKIDSS/UDS field: Source catalogue and properties
• Far-infrared and dust properties of present-day galaxies in the EAGLE simulations
• Dust continuum emission as a tracer of gas mass in galaxies
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey UKIDSS/UDS field: High-resolution dust continuum morphologies and the link between sub-millimetre galaxies and spheroid formation
• Gas Fraction and Depletion Time of Massive Star Forming Galaxies at z~3.2: No Change in Global Star Formation Process out to z>3
• A spatially resolved study of cold dust, molecular gas, HII regions, and stars in the $z=2.12$ submillimeter galaxy ALESS67.1
• Evolution of the dust-to-metals ratio in high-redshift galaxies probed by GRB-DLAs
• Gas-phase metallicity gradients of TNG50 star-forming galaxies
• Predictions for the spatial distribution of the dust continuum emission in 1<z<5 star-forming galaxies
• Structural evolution in massive galaxies at z~2
• Dust scaling relations in a cosmological simulation
• Reproducing sub-millimetre galaxy number counts with cosmological hydrodynamic simulations
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the HUDF: The Cosmic Dust and Gas Mass Densities in Galaxies up to $z\sim 3$
• The Main Sequence at $z\sim 1.3$ contains a sizable fraction of galaxies with compact star formation sizes: a new population of early post-starbursts?
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: The nature of the faintest dusty star-forming galaxies
• Revealing the Stellar Mass and Dust Distributions of Submillimeter Galaxies at Redshift 2
• Powderday: Dust Radiative Transfer for Galaxy Simulations
• The Molecular Gas Reservoirs of $z\sim 2$ Galaxies: A comparison of CO(1-0) and dust-based molecular gas masses
• The IRX-$\beta$ relation of high-redshift galaxies
• A Comparison of the Stellar, CO and Dust-Continuum Emission from Three, Star-Forming HUDF Galaxies at $z\sim 2$
• A redshift-dependent IRX-$\beta$ dust attenuation relation for TNG50 galaxies
• The First Robust Constraints on the Relationship Between Dust-to-Gas Ratio and Metallicity in Luminous Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshift
• IllustrisTNG and S2COSMOS: possible conflicts in the evolution of neutral gas and dust

Cited by in corpus (42)

• The ALMA REBELS Survey: Dust Continuum Detections at z > 6.5
• Supermassive Black Holes at High Redshift are Expected to be Obscured by their Massive Host Galaxies' Inter Stellar Medium
• EPOCHS VI: The Size and Shape Evolution of Galaxies since z ~ 8 with JWST Observations
• GOODS-ALMA 2.0: Source catalog, number counts, and prevailing compact sizes in 1.1 mm galaxies
• The discovery of rest-frame UV colour gradients and a diversity of dust morphologies in bright z ~ 7 Lyman-break galaxies
• Expectations of the size evolution of massive galaxies at $3\le z\le 6$ from the TNG50 simulation: the CEERS/JWST view
• IllustrisTNG in the HSC-SSP: image data release and the major role of mini mergers as drivers of asymmetry and star formation
• A${}^3$COSMOS: A census on the molecular gas mass and extent of main-sequence galaxies across cosmic time
• First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) IV: The size evolution of galaxies at $z\ge 5$
• The MOSDEF Survey: Implications of the Lack of Evolution in the Dust Attenuation-Mass Relation to z~2
• The Structure of Massive Star-Forming Galaxies from JWST and ALMA: Dusty, High Redshift Disk Galaxies
• X-ray radiative transfer in full 3D with SKIRT
• Galaxy Size and Mass Build-up in the First 2 Gyrs of Cosmic History from Multi-Wavelength JWST NIRCam Imaging
• The Impact of Dust on the Sizes of Galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization
• Sub-Millimetre Galaxies with Webb: Near-Infrared Counterparts and Multi-wavelength Morphology
• The ALMA-CRISTAL survey: Widespread dust-obscured star formation in typical star-forming galaxies at z=4-6
• UV to submillimetre luminosity functions of TNG50 galaxies
• The interstellar medium distribution, gas kinematics, and system dynamics of the far-infrared luminous quasar SDSS J2310+1855 at $z=6.0$
• The ALMA-CRISTAL survey: Gas, dust, and stars in star-forming galaxies when the Universe was ~1 Gyr old I. Survey overview and case studies
• CEERS: MIRI deciphers the spatial distribution of dust-obscured star formation in galaxies at $0.1<z<2.5$
• IR SED and Dust Masses of Sub-solar Metallicity Galaxies at z~2.3
• High-resolution ALMA study of CO (2-1) line and dust continuum emissions in cluster galaxies at z = 1.46
• Predicting sub-millimeter flux densities from global galaxy properties
• Compact molecular gas emission in local LIRGs among low- and high-z galaxies
• Dust attenuation, dust content and geometry of star-forming galaxies
• TODDLERS: A new UV-mm emission library for star-forming regions. 1. Integration with SKIRT and public release
• Clumpy star formation and an obscured nuclear starburst in the luminous dusty z=4 galaxy GN20 seen by MIRI/JWST
• Dynamical modelling and origin of gas turbulence in z $\sim$ 4.5 galaxies
• The THESAN-ZOOM project: central starbursts and inside-out quenching govern galaxy sizes in the early Universe
• ERGO-ML: Comparing IllustrisTNG and HSC galaxy images via contrastive learning
• Evidence of extended [CII] and dust emission in local dwarf galaxies
• The ALPINE-ALMA [CII] Survey: Dust emission effective radius up to 3 kpc in the Early Universe
• Monte Carlo radiative transfer with explicit absorption to simulate absorption, scattering, and stimulated emission
• The mass-dependent UVJ diagram at cosmic noon: A challenge for galaxy evolution models and dust radiative transfer
• CO(1--0) imaging reveals 10-kiloparsec molecular gas reservoirs around star-forming galaxies at high redshift
• Tetrahedral grids in Monte Carlo radiative transfer
• Unveiling dust, molecular gas, and high star formation efficiency in extremely UV bright star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 2.1-3.6$
• IllustrisTNG in the HSC-SSP: No Shortage of Thin Disk Galaxies in TNG50
• First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) XVI: Size Evolution of Massive Dusty Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn from UV to IR
• JWST reveals extended stellar disks for ALMA-bright dusty star-forming galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster
• Predicting the resolved CO emission of $z=1-3$ star-forming galaxies
• From simulations to observations. Methodology and data release of mock TNG50 galaxies at 0.3 < z < 0.7 for WEAVE-StePS