Understand
Galaxy morphology is shaped by stellar activity, feedback, gas and dust properties, and interactions with surroundings, and can therefore provide insight into these processes.
- In this paper, we study the spatial offsets between stellar and interstellar medium emission in a sample of 54 main-sequence star-forming galaxies at $z\sim4-6$ observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and drawn from the ALMA Large Program to INvestigate C$^+$ at Early times (ALPINE).
- We find no significant spatial offset for the majority ($\sim$ 70 percent) of galaxies in the sample among any combination of [C II], far-infrared continuum, optical, and ultraviolet emission.
- However, a fraction of the sample ($\sim$ 30 percent) shows offsets larger than the median by more than 3$\sigma$ significance (compared to the uncertainty on the offsets), especially between [C II] and ultraviolet emission.