The Azahar Project: Non-Thermal Physics Drives Star Formation Burstiness and the Evolution of the UV Luminosity Density at Cosmic Dawn

arXiv:2607.15344 · astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO · Submitted 2026-07-16 · Read on arXiv

Sergio Martin-Alvarez, Risa H. Wechsler, Debora Sijacki

astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO

Submitted: 2026-07-16

Comments: 33 pages (22 in main text), 18 figures (12 in main text), and 6 appendices. Submitted to ApJ. More information and visualizations at https://www.azaharsimulations.com/

License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

Terminology

• Metallicity — 22× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Trace — 7× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Calibration — 4× in this paper · explained in 7 episodes
• Abundance — 3× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Stellar Feedback — 3× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Aperture — 2× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Clustering — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Dust Attenuation — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Ab Initio — 1× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Accuracy — 1× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Adam — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Alignment — 1× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Galaxy Quenching — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Initial Mass Function (IMF) — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Non-linear Coupling — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Robustness — 1× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes
• Star Formation Efficiency (SFE) — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes

Sources

• MEGATRON: the impact of non-equilibrium effects and local radiation fields on the circumgalactic medium at cosmic noon
• The Star-forming Main Sequence and Bursty Star-formation Histories at z>1.4 in JADES and AURORA
• MEGATRON: Reproducing the Diversity of High-Redshift Galaxy Spectra with Cosmological Radiation Hydrodynamics Simulations
• CALIMA: On-the-fly dust and PAH evolution for radiation-hydrodynamics galaxy formation simulations
• Magnetic field effects on the ISM structure and galactic outflows
• BlackTHUNDER: Evidence of three massive black holes in a z~5 galaxy

Related papers

• Apparent Stability in Self-Gravitating Turbulence and the Evolution of Molecular Clouds
• Two sets of potential-density basis pairs for the study of radial perturbations in collisionless spherical stellar systems
• Constraining reionization-era Ly alpha escape with JELS-MUSE: a highly complete H alpha-selected sample at z about6.1
• Deriving volume density profiles of filaments from observed surface densities
• Little Red Dots and Supermassive Black Hole Seed Formation in Ultralight Dark Matter Halos
• MEGATRON: how the first stars can create an iron metallicity plateau in the smallest dwarf galaxies