Spatially resolved gas-phase metallicity at z~2-3 with JWST/NIRISS

Ayan Acharyya; Peter J. Watson; Benedetta Vulcani; Tommaso Treu; Kalina V. Nedkova; Andrew J. Bunker; Vihang Mehta; Hakim Atek; Andrew J. Battisti; Farhanul Hasan; Matthew J. Hayes; Mason Huberty; Tucker Jones; Nicha Leethochawalit; Yu-Heng Lin; Matthew A. Malkan; Benjamin Metha; Themiya Nanayakkara; Marc Rafelski; Zahra Sattari; Claudia Scarlata; Xin Wang; Caitlin M. Casey; Andrea Grazian; Anton M. Koekemoer; Mario Radovich; Giulia Rodighiero

arXiv · 2508.05335

Spatially resolved gas-phase metallicity at z~2-3 with JWST/NIRISS

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Abstract

Spatially resolved gas-phase metallicity maps are a crucial element in understanding the chemical evolution of galaxies. We present spatially resolved metallicity maps obtained from NIRISS/WFSS observations. This is the first such work presenting multiple individual galaxies. We investigate the source of ionisation, metallicity and its relation to star-formation in a spatially-resolved sense for a sample of eight galaxies -- four from JWST-PASSAGE and four from GLASS-JWST ERS. All but one galaxy are in the redshift range $1.9 \leq z \leq 2$, the outlier being at $z = 3.1$. Our sample covers a range of $8.0 <$ \logM $< 9.5$ in stellar mass, $0.2 <$ $\log{\rm{(SFR}}$/\Msunpyr) $< 1.1$ in star-formation rate (SFR) and $7.8 <$ \logOH $< 9.0$ in global metallicity. As a solution to the challenge of SF-AGN demarcation in absence of resolved \halpha, we present a new SF-demarcation line in the \textit{OHNO} parameter space based on MAPPINGS v5.1 publicly available \hii region model grids. We present the mass-metallicity gradient relation for our sample, which showed no clear trend with stellar mass, perhaps hinting at the fact that the high-$z$ galaxies have not yet started their accretion dominated phase. By interpreting the correlation between spatially resolved metallicity and SFR maps as a proxy for effective timescales of metal-transport in galaxies, we find a weak trend such that this timescale increases with stellar mass, implying a more effective feedback in lower mass galaxies.

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Ayan Acharyya, Peter J. Watson, Benedetta Vulcani, Tommaso Treu, Kalina V. Nedkova, Andrew J. Bunker, Vihang Mehta, Hakim Atek, Andrew J. Battisti, Farhanul Hasan, Matthew J. Hayes, Mason Huberty, Tucker Jones, Nicha Leethochawalit, Yu-Heng Lin, Matthew A. Malkan, Benjamin Metha, Themiya Nanayakkara, Marc Rafelski, Zahra Sattari, Claudia Scarlata, Xin Wang, Caitlin M. Casey, Andrea Grazian, Anton M. Koekemoer, Mario Radovich, Giulia Rodighiero. 2026-06-08. Spatially resolved gas-phase metallicity at z~2-3 with JWST/NIRISS. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05335

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