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Primordial Rotating Disk Composed of $\geq$15 Dense Star-Forming Clumps at Cosmic Dawn

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arxiv 2402.18543 v3 pith:VVABIWXS submitted 2024-02-28 astro-ph.GA astro-ph.CO

classification astro-ph.GAastro-ph.CO
keywords earlygalaxiesgalaxyclumpscosmicdiskfeedbackhigh
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abstract

Early galaxy formation, initiated by the dark matter and gas assembly, evolves through frequent mergers and feedback processes into dynamically hot, chaotic structures. In contrast, dynamically cold, smooth rotating disks have been observed in massive evolved galaxies merely 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, suggesting rapid morphological and dynamical evolution in the early Universe. Probing this evolution mechanism necessitates studies of young galaxies, yet efforts have been hindered by observational limitations in both sensitivity and spatial resolution. Here we report high-resolution observations of a strongly lensed and quintuply imaged, low-luminosity, young galaxy at $z=6.072$ (dubbed the Cosmic Grapes), 930 million years after the Big Bang. Magnified by gravitational lensing, the galaxy is resolved into at least 15 individual star-forming clumps with effective radii of $r_{\rm e}\simeq$ 10--60 parsec (pc), which dominate $\simeq$ 70\% of the galaxy's total flux. The cool gas emission unveils a smooth, underlying rotating disk characterized by a high rotational-to-random motion ratio and a gravitationally unstable state (Toomre $Q \simeq$ 0.2--0.3), with high surface gas densities comparable to local dusty starbursts with $\simeq10^{3-5}$ $M_{\odot}$/pc$^{2}$. These gas properties suggest that the numerous star-forming clumps are formed through disk instabilities with weak feedback effects. The clumpiness of the Cosmic Grapes significantly exceeds that of galaxies at later epochs and the predictions from current simulations for early galaxies. Our findings shed new light on internal galaxy substructures and their relation to the underlying dynamics and feedback mechanisms at play during their early formation phases, potentially explaining the high abundance of bright galaxies observed in the early Universe and the dark matter core-cusp problem.

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Cited by 11 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. OpenAlex reports about 19 citations worldwide. Full citation record

  1. The Cosmic Rush Hour: Rapid Formation of Bright, Massive, Disky, Star-Forming Galaxies as Signatures of Early-Universe Physics

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    Early dark energy in large hydrodynamic simulations reproduces JWST's excess of bright, massive, high-redshift galaxies while preserving low-redshift Lambda-CDM behavior.

  2. The Fraction of Clumpy Galaxies in JADES Over $2<z<9$

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    The clumpy-galaxy fraction rises from ~20% at z>6.5 to ~80% at z~2.75 in a 9,121-galaxy JWST sample, higher than HST-based values because JWST detects fainter clumps.

  3. Pristine Massive Star Formation Caught at the Break of Cosmic Dawn

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    The lensed galaxy AMORE6 at z=5.725 shows H-beta but no [OIII], giving an oxygen abundance upper limit of 0.19% solar, the most metal-poor galaxy known.

  4. Chasing the formation history of the Galactic metal-poor disc

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    A chemo-dynamical analysis of metal-poor stars finds a primordial Galactic disc, extends the metallicity ranges of the high-α and low-α discs, and identifies three new substructures.

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    A new 1800-galaxy atlas of infrared fine-structure lines shows line ratios chiefly trace abundances and radiation hardness, quantifies AGN contamination in [O III]88 and [O I]63, and finds most density tracers biased.

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    astro-ph.GA 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    JWST spectra show Earendel's continuum is well fitted by a simple stellar population, suggesting it may be a young, metal-poor star cluster rather than a single star.

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    Star clusters that assemble hierarchically with binaries, triples, or very massive stars produce 10^3 to 10^4 M_sun intermediate-mass black holes within 10 Myr, offering a path to supermassive black hole seeds.

  9. Morphological Demographics of Galaxies at $z\sim 10-16$: Log-Normal Size Distribution and Exponential Profiles Consistent with the Disk Formation Scenario

    astro-ph.GA 2025-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Galaxies at z=10-16 have a log-normal size distribution with sigma 0.52, nearly uniform axis ratios, and exponential profiles, consistent with early disk formation.

  10. Deep Spectroscopic Follow-Up of Maisie's Galaxy -- A Typical Galaxy in the Early Universe

    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Deep JWST spectroscopy of Maisie's Galaxy at z=11.4 reveals moderate star formation, metallicity, and ionization consistent with a typical galaxy on the early star-formation main sequence rather than an extreme source.

  11. Undermassive Hosts of $z = 4-6 $ AGN from JWST/NIRCam Image Decomposition with CONGRESS, FRESCO, and JADES

    astro-ph.GA 2026-01 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Faint AGN hosts at z≈4–6 look 1–2 dex less massive after image decomposition, pushing their black-hole-to-stellar-mass ratios to ~0.01–1.48, above the local relation.

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