J/A+A/711/A177ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/711/A177CDSScarpe G.Valentino F.Ito K.Baker M. W.Pensabene A.Zhu P.2026-07-10T07:38:35Z2026-07-10T08:38:10ZCDS support team

CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France

cds-question@unistra.frgalaxiesphotometryinfrared-photometryredshiftedgalaxy-classification-systemsMassive galaxies stopped forming stars surprisingly early in the history of the Universe. However, after quenching, the galaxies continued to grow in size across time, as established in the literature up to cosmic noon. We assemble one of the largest and most comprehensive multiwavelength photometric sample of massive quenched galaxies at z>3 from publicly available JWST observations, counting 137 quiescent candidates within ~825arcmin^2^ and redshift 3<=z<7 across the well-studied extragalactic fields GOODS, PRIMER, and CEERS. We modeled their surface brightness distribution across five bands mapping their UV-to-near-IR rest-frame wavelength with Sersic profiles, and derived their sizes, concentrations, and ellipticities. The size-mass relation is consistent with previous studies, showing a shallower slope at low redshift z{in}[3, 3.5] and a steeper slope at high redshift z>3.5. The size decreases with increasing redshift, in agreement with previous studies and we extend them up to zspec=4.9. Leveraging the large sample statistics, we robustly constrain the intrinsic scatter of the mass-size relation to ~0.3dex with no relevant dependence on the redshift and the filter used. At the population level, our multiwavelength modeling reveals that the size decreases with increasing observed wavelength, and the wavelength gradient decreases with increasing stellar mass. This result proves that in the near-IR bands, massive elliptical galaxies appear to be more compact. The Sersic index shows no significant dependence on wavelength, regardless of the stellar mass. Following a forward-backward Bayesian fit analysis to assess the significance of several parameters in predicting the size of our sample, we identified no significant secondary dependence of the size on the axis ratio q, Sersic index n, UVJ-colors, or environment. The combination of stellar mass and redshift is sufficient to predict the size of quiescent galaxies at z>3, albeit with a large scatter. This suggests that the commonly used parameters of a Sersic distribution cannot explain the large intrinsic scatter around the stellar mass-size relation, suggesting that other physical quantities need to be taken into account to break the degeneracy between evolution paths across the galaxy population.2026A&A...711A.177Shttps://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/711/A177CatalogResearchIsServedByTAP VizieR generic serviceIsServedByConesearch servicehttps://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.htmlhttps://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/711/A177https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/711/A177http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/711/A177https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/711/A177https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/711/A177http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/A+A/711/A177GETtext/xml+votablehttps://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tapCone search capability for table J/A+A/711/A177/tableb1 (Catalog)https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/711/A177/tableb1?https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/711/A177/tableb1?http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/711/A177/tableb1?GETtext/xml+votable180.050000true215.0390580653.002781110.0055555555555555566/11252 11425 17679 17690 27258 35935https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/moc/J/A+A/711/A177?format=asciiOpticalInfrareddefaultJ/A+A/711/A177/tableb1CatalogrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintIDSequential identification numbermeta.id;meta.mainintRAJ2000Right ascension (J2000)degpos.eq.ra;meta.mainDEJ2000Declination (J2000)degpos.eq.dec;meta.mainzphotPhotometric redshiftsrc.redshiftfloatzspec? Spectroscopic redshiftsrc.redshiftfloatnullablelogMstarLog of stellar masslog(solMass)phys.massfloatRadF444WRadius in F444Wkpcphys.size.radiusfloate_RadF444WError radius in F444Wkpcstat.errorfloatRadF200WRadius in F200Wkpcphys.size.radiusfloate_RadF200WError radius in F200Wkpcstat.errorfloatnF444WSersic index in F444Wstat.fit.paramfloate_nF444WError Sersic index in F444Wstat.errorfloatqF444WAxis ratio in F444Wphys.size.axisRatiofloate_qF444WError axis ratio in F444Wstat.errorfloat