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PreprintCC BY 4.0arXiv

A First Measurement of Circumgalactic Dust Reddening from Only 4.6 deg2 of the Rubin Observatory's Data Preview 1

  • John Franklin Crenshaw
  • Matthew McQuinn
  • Jessica K. Werk
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

We present the first measurement of circumgalactic dust reddening from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, using only 4.6 deg2 of ComCam Data Preview 1 --- roughly 0.03% of the final LSST footprint. Using photometric redshifts, we stack background-galaxy colors around foreground-galaxy positions and detect a chromatic reddening profile from r⊥ ≃ 10 kpc to $1$ Mpc. Interpreting average E(g−z) with a Milky Way extinction curve, we find AV = (1.3 ± 0.4) × 10−1 (r⊥ / 20 kpc)−1.8 ± 0.4 within $120$ kpc. The amplitude and radial dependence agree with earlier Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), KiDS, and Dark Energy Survey (DES) results despite the ∼1000× smaller survey area and a foreground sample extending 3--6 mag fainter and 1--2 dex lower in stellar mass. The innermost 10--15 kpc bin reaches AV ≃ 0.3 mag, comparable to high-latitude extinction through the Milky Way disk near the solar circle; the steep power-law slope implies a dust distribution that does not simply trace the halo-gas profile. Splitting by rest-frame g−r shows stronger extinction around red foreground galaxies (rest-frame g−r > 0.5), although the blue subsample is too noisy to establish a significant color dependence. This red sample, with median halo mass 5 × 1011 M⊙, shows substantially more reddening within 50 kpc than previously measured around more massive LRGs and implies a dust-to-stellar-mass ratio of ∼ 2%, nearly saturating the dust budget allowed by stellar metal yields. These pathfinder data demonstrate LSST's promise for high-precision galaxy--dust measurements across galaxy mass, environment, and redshift.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@misc{crenshaw2026first,
  title = {{A First Measurement of Circumgalactic Dust Reddening from Only 4.6 deg$^2$ of the Rubin Observatory's Data Preview 1}},
  author = {John Franklin Crenshaw and Matthew McQuinn and Jessica K. Werk},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.24159},
  eprint = {2606.24159},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.24159},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - UNPB
TI  - A First Measurement of Circumgalactic Dust Reddening from Only 4.6 deg^2 of the Rubin Observatory's Data Preview 1
AU  - John Franklin Crenshaw
AU  - Matthew McQuinn
AU  - Jessica K. Werk
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/14
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.24159
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.24159
AB  - We present the first measurement of circumgalactic dust reddening from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, using only 4.6 deg^2 of ComCam Data Preview 1 --- roughly 0.03% of the final LSST footprint. Using photometric redshifts, we stack background-galaxy colors around foreground-galaxy positions and detect a chromatic reddening profile from r_⊥ ≃ 10 kpc to $1$ Mpc. Interpreting average E(g−z) with a Milky Way extinction curve, we find A_V = (1.3 ± 0.4) × 10^−1 (r_⊥ / 20 kpc)^−1.8 ± 0.4 within $120$ kpc. The amplitude and radial dependence agree with earlier Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), KiDS, and Dark Energy Survey (DES) results despite the ∼1000× smaller survey area and a foreground sample extending 3--6 mag fainter and 1--2 dex lower in stellar mass. The innermost 10--15 kpc bin reaches A_V ≃ 0.3 mag, comparable to high-latitude extinction through the Milky Way disk near the solar circle; the steep power-law slope implies a dust distribution that does not simply trace the halo-gas profile. Splitting by rest-frame g−r shows stronger extinction around red foreground galaxies (rest-frame g−r > 0.5), although the blue subsample is too noisy to establish a significant color dependence. This red sample, with median halo mass 5 × 10^11 M_⊙, shows substantially more reddening within 50 kpc than previously measured around more massive LRGs and implies a dust-to-stellar-mass ratio of ∼ 2%, nearly saturating the dust budget allowed by stellar metal yields. These pathfinder data demonstrate LSST's promise for high-precision galaxy--dust measurements across galaxy mass, environment, and redshift.
ER  -