Speaker
Description
Understanding galaxy formation and evolution within the ΛCDM framework remains one of the critical challenges in astrophysics. Recent JWST observations revealed the existance of a massive giant disc within a Cosmic Web node at z~3, namely the Big Wheel. Constraining its origin requires a detailed characterisation of its dark matter halo, whose properties are notoriously difficult to extract from observations alone. With the aim of reconstructing the mass profile of the galaxy, I perform a physically motivated dynamical model by integrating high-resolution ALMA kinematical data with priors from JWST photometry. I find a lower limit for the stellar-to-halo mass ratio, which is already significantly higher than predicted by standard empirical relations, possibly suggesting an exceptional efficiency in forming stars. To verify the physical plausibility of the model, I performed an idealized numerical simulation, demonstrating that the galaxy remains gravitationally stable over 2.5 Gyr of adiabatic evolution. While based on an individual system, these findings could provide constraints on the evolution of massive discs within high-density environments in the early Universe.
| Parallel session | Astrophysical Probes of Dark Matter and Dark Energy |
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