Persistence of negligible UV–optical color gradients in LAEs

Determine whether the negligible ultraviolet–optical color gradients reported for Lyα emitters persist across all redshifts, including approximately z = 2 and within narrow redshift windows.

Background

The paper studies the rest-frame ultraviolet and optical morphologies of narrowband-selected Lyα emitters across z ≈ 2–7 using a uniformly selected sample and consistent JWST/NIRCam structural measurements. Previous work reported negligible ultraviolet–optical color gradients for Lyα emitters, but the persistence of that result across the full redshift range—and particularly at z ≈ 2 and in narrow redshift intervals—had not been established. The authors explicitly identify this as an unresolved question motivating their uniform analysis.