Description
Dust attenuation in galaxies exhibit variability due to factors such as metallicity, redshift, and whether it is a quenched or star-forming galaxy. Using observations with both NIRSpec and NIRCam aboard JWST from the Blue Jay survey, a mass-selected sample of 145 galaxies in the COSMOS field at cosmic noon (1.7 < z < 1.3) was compiled to connect the enigmatic nature of the dust attenuation law with the physical parameters of the galaxy. These deep spectroscopic and photometric observations were fit simultaneously using the SED fitting tool Prospector, which implemented a non-parametric star-forming history and a flexible attenuation curve.
For the first time, we find evidence of the dust attenuation vs stellar mass relationship holding for starbursts, star-forming galaxies, and quenched galaxies. Using size measurements, we can show that the star formation rate and stellar mass surface densities are more strongly correlated with the dust attenuation than the global parameters. We find a size-mass relation in the rest-frame optical; however, this flattens when we observe in the rest-frame near infrared. We find a colour gradient in the sizes of these galaxies, with the higher mass galaxies ($\rm M_{\star}\gtrsim10^{10}\rm M_{\odot}$) appearing more extended in the red than the blue due to an excess in central dust attenuation. At low masses, we see a large variation in this size gradient, likely due to the galaxies' assembly history.
