Opening the era of quasar host studies at high redshift with JWST

Kavli Affiliate: John D. Silverman

| First 5 Authors: Xuheng Ding, John D. Silverman, Masafusa Onoue, ,

| Summary:

We measure the host galaxy properties of five quasars with $zsim 1.6 – 3.5$
selected from SDSS and AEGIS, which fall within the JWST/HST CEERS survey area.
A PSF library is constructed based on stars in the full field-of-view of the
data and used with a 2-dimensional image modeling tool galight to decompose the
quasar and its host with multi-band filters available for HST ACS+WFC3 and JWST
NIRCAM (12 filters covering HST F606W to JWST F444W). As demonstrated, JWST
provides the first capability to detect quasar hosts at $z>3$ and enables
spatially-resolved studies of the underlying stellar populations at $zsim2$
within morphological structures (spiral arms, bar) not possible with HST.
Overall, we find quasar hosts to be disk-like, lack merger signatures, and have
sizes generally more compact than typical star-forming galaxies at their
respective stellar, thus in agreement with results at lower redshifts. The
fortuitous face-on orientation of SDSSJ1420+5300A at $z = 1.646$ enables us to
find higher star formation and younger ages in the central $2-4$ kpc region
relative to the outskirts, which may help explain the relatively compact nature
of quasar hosts and pose a challenge to AGN feedback models.

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