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Arxiv: Less Wound and More Asymmetric: JWST Confirms the Evolution of Spiral Structure in Galaxies at z \lesssim 3 Published: 1/20/2025 8:54:30 PM Updated: 1/20/2025 8:54:30 PM

Paper abstract: Spiral galaxies are ubiquitous in the local Universe. However the propertiesof spiral arms in them are still not well studied, and there is even lessinformation concerning spiral structure in distant galaxies. We aim to measurethe most general parameters of spiral arms in remote galaxies and trace theirchanges with redshift. We perform photometric decomposition, including spiralarms, for 159 galaxies from the HST COSMOS and JWST CEERS and JADES surveys,which are imaged in optical and near-infrared rest-frame wavelengths. Weconfirm that, in our representative sample of spiral galaxies, the pitch anglesincrease, and the azimuthal lengths decrease with increasing redshift, implyingthat the spiral structure becomes more tightly wound over time. For thespiral-to-total luminosity ratio and the spiral width-to-disc scale lengthratio, we find that band-shifting effects can be as significant as, or evenstronger than, evolutionary effects. Additionally, we find that spiralstructure becomes more asymmetric at higher redshifts.