The JWST view of the barred galaxy population in the SMACS0723 galaxy cluster

Abstract

The cosmic evolution of the barred galaxy population provides key information about the secular evolution of galaxies and the settling of rotationally dominated discs. We study the bar fraction in the SMACSJ0723.37323 (SMACS0723) cluster of galaxies at z = 0.39 using the Early Release Observations obtained with the NIRCam instrument mounted on the JWST telescope. As already found in nearby galaxy samples, we find that the bar fraction distribution of SMACS0723 is a strong function of the galaxy stellar luminosity/mass. The analogy with local clusters, such as Virgo and Coma, reveals a similar distribution among the three clusters for low-mass galaxies (log(M_star/M_sun) \leq 9.5). The comparison with a sample of local galaxies in a field environment shows a remarkable lack of bars in this low-mass regime for the SMACS0723 cluster (and therefore in Virgo and Coma) with respect to the field. At high masses (log(M_star/M_sun) \geq 10.25), galaxies in SMACS0723 show a slightly lower bar fraction than those in Coma. Our results support a scenario where cluster environment affects the formation of bars in a mass-dependent way. At high masses, the mild increase in the bar fraction of local clusters (Coma) with respect to both SMACS0723 and local field galaxies suggests a weak effect of cluster environment possibly triggering bar formation. On the other hand, low-mass galaxies show the same bar fraction in the three clusters (different redshifts) and a significant drop with respect to field galaxies at z=0, therefore suggesting that: i) the bar fraction of low-mass galaxies in clusters is not evolving during the last 4~Gyr, and ii) bar formation is severely inhibited in low-mass galaxies living in clusters (Abridged).

11 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (21)

• UV-extended E-MILES stellar population models: young components in massive early-type galaxies
• A Near-Infrared Study of 2MASS Bars in Local Galaxies: An Anchor for High Redshift Studies
• A Classical Morphological Analysis of Galaxies in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)
• The population of barred galaxies in the local universe I. Detection and characterisation of bars
• The JWST Early Release Observations
• Bars in Disk-Dominated and Bulge-Dominated Galaxies at z~0: New Insights from ~3600 SDSS Galaxies
• The Dependence of Bar Frequency on Galaxy Mass, Colour, and Gas Content -- and Angular Resolution -- in the Local Universe
• Galaxy Zoo: Secular evolution of barred galaxies from structural decomposition of multi-band images
• Kinematic signatures of nuclear discs and bar-driven secular evolution in nearby galaxies of the MUSE TIMER project
• First Look at z > 1 Bars in the Rest-Frame Near-Infrared with JWST Early CEERS Imaging
• The inside-out formation of nuclear discs and the absence of old central spheroids in barred galaxies of the TIMER survey
• A numerical study of interactions and stellar bars
• Frequency and properties of bars in cluster and field galaxies at intermediate redshifts
• Barred Galaxies in the IllustrisTNG Simulation
• Expectations of the size evolution of massive galaxies at $3\le z\le 6$ from the TNG50 simulation: the CEERS/JWST view
• A Morphological and Statistical Analysis of Ansae in Barred Galaxies
• Revealing the cosmic evolution of boxy/peanut-shaped bulges from HST COSMOS and SDSS
• The first large catalogue of spectroscopic redshifts in Webb's First Deep Field, SMACS J0723.3$-$7327
• The evolution of barred galaxies in the EAGLE simulations
• HST strong-lensing model for the first JWST galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327
• Deconstructing double-barred galaxies in 2D and 3D. I. Classical nature of the dominant bulges

Cited by in corpus (3)

• A JWST investigation into the bar fraction at redshifts 1 < z < 3
• Bar ages derived for the first time in nearby galaxies: Insights on secular evolution from the TIMER sample
• The Tremaine-Weinberg method at high redshifts