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Title: GOALS-JWST: NIRCam and MIRI Imaging of the Circumnuclear Starburst Ring in NGC 7469
Abstract We present James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imaging of NGC 7469 with the Near-Infrared Camera and the Mid-InfraRed Instrument. NGC 7469 is a nearby, z = 0.01627, luminous infrared galaxy that hosts both a Seyfert Type-1.5 nucleus and a circumnuclear starburst ring with a radius of ∼0.5 kpc. The new near-infrared (NIR) JWST imaging reveals 66 star-forming regions, 37 of which were not detected by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations. Twenty-eight of the 37 sources have very red NIR colors that indicate obscurations up to A v ∼ 7 and a contribution of at least 25% from hot dust emission to the 4.4 μ m band. Their NIR colors are also consistent with young (<5 Myr) stellar populations and more than half of them are coincident with the mid-infrared (MIR) emission peaks. These younger, dusty star-forming regions account for ∼6% and ∼17% of the total 1.5 and 4.4 μ m luminosity of the starburst ring, respectively. Thanks to JWST, we find a significant number of young dusty sources that were previously unseen due to dust extinction. The newly identified 28 young sources are a significant increase compared to the number of HST-detected young sources (4–5). This makes the total percentage of the young population rise from ∼15% to 48%. These results illustrate the effectiveness of JWST in identifying and characterizing previously hidden star formation in the densest star-forming environments around active galactic nuclei (AGN).  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2009416
PAR ID:
10435394
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more » ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less
Date Published:
Journal Name:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume:
942
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2041-8205
Page Range / eLocation ID:
L36
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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