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Context. The James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST's) unprecedented combination of sensitivity, spatial resolution, and infrared coverage has enabled a new era of galaxy morphology exploration across most of cosmic history. Aims. We analyze the near-infrared (NIR ∼ 0.8 − 1 μm) rest-frame morphologies of galaxies with log M*/M⊙ > 9 in the redshift range of 0 < z < 6, compare with previous HST-based results and release the first JWST-based morphological catalog of ∼20 000 galaxies in the CEERS survey. Methods. We classified the galaxies in our sample into four main broad classes: spheroid, disk+spheroid, disk, and disturbed, based on imaging with four filters: F150W, F200W, F356W, and F444W. We used convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained on HST/WFC3 labeled images and domain-adapted to JWST/NIRCam. Results. We find that ∼90% and ∼75% of galaxies at z < 3 have the same early and late and regular and irregular classification, respectively, in JWST and HST imaging when considering similar wavelengths. For small (large) and faint objects, JWST-based classifications tend to systematically present less bulge-dominated systems (peculiar galaxies) than HST-based ones, but the impact on the reported evolution of morphological fractions is less than ∼10%. Using JWST-based morphologies at the same rest-frame wavelength (∼0.8 − 1 μm), we confirm an increase in peculiar galaxies and a decrease in bulge-dominated galaxies with redshift, as reported in previous HST-based works, suggesting that the stellar mass distribution, in addition to light distribution, is more disturbed in the early Universe. However, we find that undisturbed disk-like systems already dominate the high-mass end of the late-type galaxy population (log M*/M⊙ > 10.5) at z ∼ 5, and bulge-dominated galaxies also exist at these early epochs, confirming a rich and evolved morphological diversity of galaxies ∼1 Gyr after the Big Bang. Finally, we find that the morphology-quenching relation is already in place for massive galaxies at z > 3, with massive quiescent galaxies (log M*/M⊙ > 10.5) being predominantly bulge-dominated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results from a study of the morphologies of moderate luminosity X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) host galaxies in comparison to a carefully mass-matched control sample at 0.5 < z < 3 in the CANDELS GOODS-S field. We apply a multiwavelength morphological decomposition analysis to these two samples and report on the differences between the morphologies as fitted from single Sérsic and multiple Sérsic models, and models which include an additional nuclear point-source component. Thus, we are able to compare the widely adopted single Sérsic fits from previous studies to the results from a full morphological decomposition, and address the issue of how biased the inferred properties of AGN hosts are by a potential nuclear contribution from the AGN itself. We find that the AGN hosts are indistinguishable from the general galaxy population except that beyond z ≃ 1.5 they have significantly higher bulge fractions. Even including nuclear sources in our modelling, the probability of this result arising by chance is ~1 10-5, alleviating concerns that previous, purely single Sérsic, analyses of AGN hosts could have been spuriously biased towards higher bulge fractions. This data set also allows us to further probe the physical nature of these point-source components; we find no strong correlation between the point-source component and AGN activity. Our analysis of the bulge and disc fractions of these AGN hosts in comparison to a mass-matched control sample reveals a similar morphological evolutionary track for both the active and non-active populations, providing further evidence in favour of a model where AGN activity is triggered by secular processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have constructed a mass-selected sample of M* > 1011 M⊙ galaxies at 1 < z < 3 in the CANDELS UKIDSS UDS and COSMOS fields and have decomposed these systems into their separate bulge and disc components according to their H160-band morphologies. By extending this analysis to multiple bands, we have been able to conduct individual bulge and disc component SED fitting which has provided us with stellar-mass and star formation rate estimates for the separate bulge and disc components. Having utilized the new decomposed stellar-mass estimates, we confirm that the bulge components display a stronger size evolution than the discs. The median sizes of the bulge components is 3.09 ± 0.20 times smaller than similarly massive local galaxies over the full 1 < z < 3 redshift range; for the discs, the corresponding factor is 1.77 ± 0.10. Moreover, by splitting our sample into the passive and star-forming bulge and disc sub-populations and examining their sizes as a fraction of their present-day counter-parts, we find that the star-forming and passive bulges are equally compact, star-forming discs are larger, while the passive discs have intermediate sizes. This trend is not evident when classifying galaxy morphology on the basis of single-Sérsic fits and adopting the overall star formation rates. Finally, by evolving the star formation histories of the passive discs back to the redshifts when the passive discs were last active, we show that the passive and star-forming discs have consistent sizes at the relevant epoch. These trends need to be reproduced by any mechanisms which attempt to explain the morphological evolution of galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We present the results of a new and improved study of the morphological and spectral evolution of massive galaxies over the redshift range 1 < z < 3. Our analysis is based on a bulge–disc decomposition of 396 galaxies with M* > 1011 M⊙ uncovered from the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3)/IR imaging within the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) and UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) UDS survey fields. We find that, by modelling the H160 image of each galaxy with a combination of a de Vaucouleurs bulge (Sérsic index n = 4) and an exponential disc (n = 1), we can then lock all derived morphological parameters for the bulge and disc components, and successfully reproduce the shorter-wavelength J125, i814, v606 HST images simply by floating the magnitudes of the two components. This then yields sub-divided four-band HST photometry for the bulge and disc components which, with no additional priors, is well described by spectrophotometric models of galaxy evolution. Armed with this information, we are able to properly determine the masses and star formation rates for the bulge and disc components, and find that: (i) from z = 3 to 1 the galaxies move from disc dominated to increasingly bulge dominated, but very few galaxies are pure bulges/ellipticals by z = 1; (ii) while most passive galaxies are bulge dominated, and most star-forming galaxies disc dominated, 18 ± 5 per cent of passive galaxies are disc dominated, and 11 ± 3 per cent of star-forming galaxies are bulge dominated, a result which needs to be explained by any model purporting to connect star formation quenching with morphological transformations; (iii) there exists a small but significant population of pure passive discs, which are generally flatter than their star-forming counterparts (whose axial ratio distribution peaks at b/a ≃ 0.7); (iv) flatter/larger discs re-emerge at the highest star formation rates, consistent with recent studies of sub-mm galaxies, and with the concept of a maximum surface density for star formation activity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We have used high-resolution, HST WFC3/IR, near-infrared imaging to conduct a detailed bulge-disk decomposition of the morphologies of ≃ 200 of the most massive (M* > 1011 M⊙) galaxies at 1 < z < 3 in the CANDELS-UDS field. We find that, while such massive galaxies at low redshift are generally bulge-dominated, at redshifts 1 2 they are mostly disk-dominated. Interestingly, we find that while most of the quiescent galaxies are bulge-dominated, a significant fraction (25–40%) of the most quiescent galaxies, have disk-dominated morphologies. Thus, our results suggest that the physical mechanisms which quench star-formation activity are not simply connected to those responsible for the morphological transformation of massive galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT We have used high-resolution, Hubble Space Telescope, near-infrared imaging to conduct a detailed analysis of the morphological properties of the most massive galaxies at high redshift, modelling the WFC3/IR H160-band images of the ≃200 galaxies in the CANDELS-UDS field with photometric redshifts 1 < z < 3, and stellar masses M* > 1011 M⊙. We have explored the results of fitting single-Sérsic and bulge+disc models, and have investigated the additional errors and potential biases introduced by uncertainties in the background and the on-image point spread function. This approach has enabled us to obtain formally acceptable model fits to the WFC3/IR images of >90 per cent of the galaxies. Our results indicate that these massive galaxies at 1 < z < 3 lie both on and below the local size-mass relation, with a median effective radius of ∼2.6 kpc, a factor of ≃2.3 smaller than comparably massive local galaxies. Moreover, we find that bulge-dominated objects in particular show evidence for a growing bimodality in the size-mass relation with increasing redshift, and by z > 2 the compact bulges display effective radii a factor of ≃4 smaller than local ellipticals of comparable mass. These trends also appear to extend to the bulge components of disc-dominated galaxies. In addition, we find that, while such massive galaxies at low redshift are generally bulge-dominated, at redshifts 1 < z < 2 they are predominantly mixed bulge+disc systems, and by z > 2 they are mostly disc-dominated. The majority of the disc-dominated galaxies are actively forming stars, although this is also true for many of the bulge-dominated systems. Interestingly, however, while most of the quiescent galaxies are bulge-dominated, we find that a significant fraction (25-40 per cent) of the most quiescent galaxies, with specific star formation rates sSFR < 10−10 yr−1, have disc-dominated morphologies. Thus, while our results show that the massive galaxy population is undergoing dramatic changes at this crucial epoch, they also suggest that the physical mechanisms which quench star formation activity are not simply connected to those responsible for the morphological transformation of massive galaxies into present-day giant ellipticals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the structural and morphological properties of galaxies in a z = 1.62 proto-cluster using near-IR imaging data from Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 data of the Cosmic Assembly Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS). The cluster galaxies exhibit a clear color-morphology relation: galaxies with colors of quiescent stellar populations generally have morphologies consistent with spheroids, and galaxies with colors consistent with ongoing star formation have disk-like and irregular morphologies. The size distribution of the quiescent cluster galaxies shows a deficit of compact (≲1 kpc), massive galaxies compared to CANDELS field galaxies at z = 1.6. As a result, the cluster quiescent galaxies have larger average effective sizes compared to field galaxies at fixed mass at greater than 90% significance. Combined with data from the literature, the size evolution of quiescent cluster galaxies is relatively slow from z 1.6 to the present, growing as (1 + z)-0.6±0.1. If this result is generalizable, then it implies that physical processes associated with the denser cluster region seem to have caused accelerated size growth in quiescent galaxies prior to z = 1.6 and slower subsequent growth at z ≃ 1.6 compared to galaxies in the lower density field. The quiescent cluster galaxies at z = 1.6 have higher ellipticities compared to lower redshift samples at fixed mass, and their surface- brightness profiles suggest that they contain extended stellar disks. We argue that the cluster galaxies require dissipationless (i.e., gas-poor or "dry") mergers to reorganize the disk material and to match the relations for ellipticity, stellar mass, size, and color of early-type galaxies in z < 1 clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]