Diversity and evolution of dust-attenuation curves from redshift z ∼ 1 to 9
20 affiliations
- 1Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Carretera de Ajalvir km 4, Torrejón de Ardoz
- 2MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 3Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago
- 4Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP)
- 5Sterrenkundig Observatorium Department of Physics and Astronomy Universiteit Gent
- 6Institute for Computational & Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University
- 7Institute of Science and Technology Austria
- 8Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
- 9Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
- 10Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva
- 11Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
- 12Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building
- 13Department of Astronomy, Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University
- 14Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts
- 15Steward Observatory, University of Arizona
- 16Department of Physics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
- 17Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside
- 18AURA for the European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute
- 19Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge
- 20Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge
Abstract
The UV–optical dust-attenuation curve is key to interpreting the intrinsic properties of galaxies and provides insights into the nature of dust grains and their geometry relative to stars. We constrained the UV-optical slope of the stellar attenuation curve using a spectroscopic-redshift sample of ∼3800 galaxies at z ∼ 1 − 9 to characterize the diversity and redshift evolution of stellar attenuation curves and to gain insight into dust production and evolution at high redshifts. The sample was constructed from three JWST/NIRCam grism surveys in GOODS-S, GOODS-N, and Abell-2744 fields, with a wealth of JWST/NIRCam and HST photometry. With constraints from spectroscopic redshifts and emission line fluxes, we use the Bayesian inference framework of Prospector SED fitting code with a flexible dust model to derive the attenuation curve for each galaxy. We find that the attenuation curve slope varies strongly with AV at all redshifts, becoming flatter at higher attenuation, attributed to the effect of scattering, dust-star geometry, and ISM chemical evolution. We find no strong correlation between attenuation curve slope and size or axis ratio, and the trends with stellar mass and star-formation rate are largely driven by their correlation with AV. We find strong evidence that at fixed AV, the curve becomes flatter with increasing redshift. On average, the attenuation curves derived here are shallower than those at z ∼ 0 and than the SMC curve. The highest redshift galaxies at z = 7 − 9 (124 galaxies – a significantly larger sample than in previous studies) show slopes even flatter than the Calzetti curve, implying reduced UV obscuration and lower IR luminosities than expected from an SMC dust curve, by as large as an order of magnitude. Hydrodynamical simulations that couple dust growth to gas chemical enrichment successfully reproduce the different loci of high- and low-redshift galaxies in the slope–AV diagram, suggesting that dust in high-redshift galaxies is increasingly dominated by large grains produced in supernova ejecta with limited ISM processing at early times.
Related
- Learning the Universe: The Structure of Dust Attenuation Curves in Galaxy Simulations
- How Steep is your Dust? Direct Measurements of Nebular Attenuation Curves at Cosmic Noon with JWST
- MSA-3D: A Diversity of Dust Attenuation Profiles Across the Epoch of Thin Disk Emergence
- An Attenuation Bump at z=9.3: Probing Dust Diversity at Cosmic Dawn
- An empirical derivation of the average dust attenuation law at 2<z<7
BibTeX
@article{shivaei2026diversity,
title = {{Diversity and evolution of dust-attenuation curves from redshift z ∼ 1 to 9}},
author = {Irene Shivaei and Rohan P. Naidu and Francisco Rodríguez Montero and Kosei Matsumoto and Joel Leja and Jorryt Matthee and Benjamin D. Johnson and Pascal A. Oesch and Jacopo Chevallard and Angela Adamo and Sarah Bodansky and Andrew J. Bunker and Alba Covelo-Paz and Claudia Di Cesare and Eiichi Egami and Lukas J. Furtak and K. E. Heintz and Ivan Kramarenko and R. A. Meyer and Naveen A. Reddy and Pierluigi Rinaldi and Sandro Tacchella and Alberto Torralba and Joris Witstok and M. A. Wozniak and Mengyuan Xiao},
journal = {Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen)},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/202557064},
url = {https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/da/publications/6a2c61af-1f87-4eb4-9819-5f2b0379a741},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Diversity and evolution of dust-attenuation curves from redshift z ∼ 1 to 9
AU - Irene Shivaei
AU - Rohan P. Naidu
AU - Francisco Rodríguez Montero
AU - Kosei Matsumoto
AU - Joel Leja
AU - Jorryt Matthee
AU - Benjamin D. Johnson
AU - Pascal A. Oesch
AU - Jacopo Chevallard
AU - Angela Adamo
AU - Sarah Bodansky
AU - Andrew J. Bunker
AU - Alba Covelo-Paz
AU - Claudia Di Cesare
AU - Eiichi Egami
AU - Lukas J. Furtak
AU - K. E. Heintz
AU - Ivan Kramarenko
AU - R. A. Meyer
AU - Naveen A. Reddy
AU - Pierluigi Rinaldi
AU - Sandro Tacchella
AU - Alberto Torralba
AU - Joris Witstok
AU - M. A. Wozniak
AU - Mengyuan Xiao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/11
JO - Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen)
DO - 10.1051/0004-6361/202557064
UR - https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/da/publications/6a2c61af-1f87-4eb4-9819-5f2b0379a741
AB - The UV–optical dust-attenuation curve is key to interpreting the intrinsic properties of galaxies and provides insights into the nature of dust grains and their geometry relative to stars. We constrained the UV-optical slope of the stellar attenuation curve using a spectroscopic-redshift sample of ∼3800 galaxies at z ∼ 1 − 9 to characterize the diversity and redshift evolution of stellar attenuation curves and to gain insight into dust production and evolution at high redshifts. The sample was constructed from three JWST/NIRCam grism surveys in GOODS-S, GOODS-N, and Abell-2744 fields, with a wealth of JWST/NIRCam and HST photometry. With constraints from spectroscopic redshifts and emission line fluxes, we use the Bayesian inference framework of Prospector SED fitting code with a flexible dust model to derive the attenuation curve for each galaxy. We find that the attenuation curve slope varies strongly with AV at all redshifts, becoming flatter at higher attenuation, attributed to the effect of scattering, dust-star geometry, and ISM chemical evolution. We find no strong correlation between attenuation curve slope and size or axis ratio, and the trends with stellar mass and star-formation rate are largely driven by their correlation with AV. We find strong evidence that at fixed AV, the curve becomes flatter with increasing redshift. On average, the attenuation curves derived here are shallower than those at z ∼ 0 and than the SMC curve. The highest redshift galaxies at z = 7 − 9 (124 galaxies – a significantly larger sample than in previous studies) show slopes even flatter than the Calzetti curve, implying reduced UV obscuration and lower IR luminosities than expected from an SMC dust curve, by as large as an order of magnitude. Hydrodynamical simulations that couple dust growth to gas chemical enrichment successfully reproduce the different loci of high- and low-redshift galaxies in the slope–AV diagram, suggesting that dust in high-redshift galaxies is increasingly dominated by large grains produced in supernova ejecta with limited ISM processing at early times.
SN - 0004-6361
SN - 1432-0746
ER -