Simulation-Informed Dust Masses in Typical 6<z<14 JWST Galaxies

@misc{mckinney2026simulationinformed,
  title = {{Simulation-Informed Dust Masses in Typical $6<z<14$ JWST Galaxies}},
  author = {Jed McKinney and Dhruv T. Zimmerman and Desika Narayanan and Caitlin M. Casey and Julian B. Munoz and Paul Torrey and Hui Li and Federico Marinacci},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.37821},
  eprint = {2610.37821},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.37821},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Simulation-Informed Dust Masses in Typical 6<z<14 JWST Galaxies
AU  - Jed McKinney
AU  - Dhruv T. Zimmerman
AU  - Desika Narayanan
AU  - Caitlin M. Casey
AU  - Julian B. Munoz
AU  - Paul Torrey
AU  - Hui Li
AU  - Federico Marinacci
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/27
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.37821
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.37821
AB  - Direct detections of dust in typical z>8 galaxies remain untenable, despite the presence of dust suggested by rest-frame UV/optical spectro-photometry. Informed by cosmological zoom-in simulations where dust particles evolve on-the-fly, we present a novel method for inferring dust masses in high-redshift galaxies using stellar half-light radii and UV/optical attenuation. Our methods reproduce observed trends at lower redshift, ultimately diverging from Milky Way-based calibration factors by up to ∼1.5 dex. We apply this method to observed JWST galaxies from 6<z<14, and find dust masses in the range M_dust∼10^3−10^5 M_⊙ that are fully consistent with upper limits from ALMA, and suggest an early dust enrichment period by supernovae followed by efficient grain destruction in the hot gas. Future observations may use our tabulated calibration to infer dust masses over a wide range of stellar masses and redshifts.
ER  -