English

Large-Scale Structure in COSMOS-Web: Tracing Galaxy Evolution in the Cosmic Web up to $z \sim 7$ with the Largest JWST Survey

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2025-11-17 v1

Abstract

We present a reconstruction of the large-scale structure using the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) COSMOS-Web program to trace environmentally driven galaxy evolution up to z7z\sim7. We applied a weighted kernel density estimation method to 160,000 galaxies with robust photometric redshifts. We find that stellar mass has a positive correlation with density at all redshifts, stronger for quiescent galaxies (QGs) at z2.5z\lesssim2.5, while at higher redshifts (2.5z5.52.5\lesssim z\lesssim5.5) this trend is confined to extreme overdense environments, consistent with early mass assembly in proto-clusters. The star-formation rate (SFR) shows a negative trend with density for QGs at z1.2z\lesssim1.2, reversing at z1.8z\gtrsim1.8, while star-forming galaxies (SFGs) show a mild positive correlation up to z5.5z\sim5.5. The specific SFR remains nearly flat for SFGs and declines with density for QGs at z1.2z\lesssim1.2. Moreover, mass and environmental quenching efficiencies show that mass-driven processes dominate at z2.5z\gtrsim2.5, the two processes act with comparable strength between 0.8z2.50.8\lesssim z\lesssim2.5, and environmental quenching becomes stronger for low-mass galaxies (M1010MM_\star\lesssim10^{10} M_\odot) at z0.8z\lesssim0.8. These findings reveal that large-scale structure drives galaxy evolution by enhancing early mass assembly in dense regions and increasingly suppressing star formation in low-mass systems at later times, establishing the environmental role of the cosmic web across cosmic history. COSMOS-Web, the largest JWST survey, provides accurate and deep photometric redshifts, reaching 80% mass completeness at log(M/M)8.7\log(M_\star/M_\odot)\sim8.7 at z7z\sim7, enabling the first view of how environments shaped galaxy evolution from the epoch of reionization to the present day.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.10727,
  title  = {Large-Scale Structure in COSMOS-Web: Tracing Galaxy Evolution in the Cosmic Web up to $z \sim 7$ with the Largest JWST Survey},
  author = {Hossein Hatamnia and Bahram Mobasher and Sina Taamoli and Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe and Caitlin M. Casey and Hollis B. Akins and Malte Brinch and Nima Chartab and Nicole E. Drakos and Andreas L. Faisst and Steven L. Finkelstein and Maximilien Franco and Finn Giddings and Ghassem Gozaliasl and Ali Hadi and Aryana Haghjoo and Santosh Harish and Olivier Ilbert and Pascale L. Jablonka and Shuowen Jin and Ali Ahmad Khostovan and Anton M. Koekemoer and Ronaldo Laishram and Daizhong Liu and Matteo Maturi and Henry Joy McCracken and Crystal L. Martin and Lauro Moscardini and Diana Scognamiglio and Marko Shuntov and Greta Toni and Alexander de la Vega and John R. Weaver and Lilan Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.10727},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

28 pages, 17 figures, 2 tables, submitted to ApJ