MSA-3D: A Diversity of Dust Attenuation Profiles Across the Epoch of Thin Disk Emergence

@misc{barisic2026msa3d,
  title = {{MSA-3D: A Diversity of Dust Attenuation Profiles Across the Epoch of Thin Disk Emergence}},
  author = {Ivana Barišić and Tucker Jones and Naveen Reddy and Matthew Malkan and Ryan Sanders and Alaina Henry and Ayan Acharyya and Kevin Bundy and Juan M. Espejo Salcedo and Karl Glazebrook and Themiya Nanayakkara and Danail Obreschkow and Namrata Roy and Takafumi Tsukui and Benedetta Vulcani and Xin Wang},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.19298},
  eprint = {2609.19298},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19298},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - MSA-3D: A Diversity of Dust Attenuation Profiles Across the Epoch of Thin Disk Emergence
AU  - Ivana Barišić
AU  - Tucker Jones
AU  - Naveen Reddy
AU  - Matthew Malkan
AU  - Ryan Sanders
AU  - Alaina Henry
AU  - Ayan Acharyya
AU  - Kevin Bundy
AU  - Juan M. Espejo Salcedo
AU  - Karl Glazebrook
AU  - Themiya Nanayakkara
AU  - Danail Obreschkow
AU  - Namrata Roy
AU  - Takafumi Tsukui
AU  - Benedetta Vulcani
AU  - Xin Wang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/16
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.19298
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19298
AB  - We present spatially resolved measurements of dust attenuation and star formation in 18 main-sequence star-forming galaxies at z∼1 from the MSA-3D survey, obtained by mapping the Balmer emission lines at ∼1 kpc resolution with JWST/NIRSpec's MSA in a slit-stepping strategy. We investigate the diversity of radial attenuation profiles, and how the spatial variation affects attenuation and star formation rates (SFR) derived from single-aperture measurements. We find a notable diversity among radial attenuation profiles: some galaxies exhibit centrally peaked attenuation, but the majority exhibit flat or even positive radial profiles, with large variation at a fixed stellar mass. This diversity may reflect different evolutionary pathways shaped by various mechanisms such as disk settling, merging, and internal processes. We examine possible biases arising from single-aperture and integrated measurements and find that, while they can under- or over-estimate attenuation and SFRs for individual galaxies, the sample-averaged trends remain roughly unchanged, with the derived SFRs consistent with the star-forming main sequence, and a small scatter. From our sample, we find a median stellar-to-nebular reddening ratio f = E(B-V)_star/E(B-V)_gas of 0.88 with an interquartile range of 0.51-0.96, suggesting relatively uniform dust distributions even in intermediate-mass galaxies (stellar masses ∼ 10^9-10^10.5 M_⊙). Our results highlight the importance of spatially resolved attenuation measurements for accurately tracing star formation and understanding the evolving dust geometry in galaxies during a critical epoch of morphological transformation.
ER  -