Evolution and mass dependence of UV-to-near-IR color gradients up to

Aims. We present the redshift evolution of radial color gradients (in rest-frame U − V and V − J) for galaxies in the range 0.5 < z < 2.5 and investigate their origin and the dependence on stellar mass. Methods. We selected ≈10 200 galaxies with stellar masses M★ > 109.5 M⊙ from publicly available JWST/NIRCam-selected catalogs. Using 2D Sérsic profile fits to account for point spread function broadening, we performed a spatially resolved spectral energy distribution fitting on HST and JWST/NIRCam photometry to retrieve accurate rest-frame U − V and V − J color gradients within 2 Re, F444W. Results. The generally negative V − J color gradients of star-forming galaxies strongly depend on mass and redshift. For massive star-forming galaxies (M★ > 1010.5 M⊙) at z > 1.5, the V − J colors are ≈0.5 mag redder within the effective radius than outside on average. At all redshifts and throughout the entire stellar mass range, the V − J gradients strongly correlate with global attenuation (AV), which suggests that they predominantly trace dust attenuation gradients. Edge-on galaxies are redder and have stronger gradients at all z, although the correlation weakens at higher z. The U − V and V − J color gradients in the quiescent galaxy population, in contrast, are weakly negative (from ≈ − 0.1 to ≈ − 0.2 mag) but significant, and they depend little or not at all on stellar mass, redshift, or axis ratio. The implication is that quiescent galaxies must be largely transparent, with low AV, and their color gradients are mostly attributable to stellar population gradients.