2024ApJ...973..145L

During the early stages of galaxy evolution, a significant fraction of galaxies undergo a transitional phase between the “blue nugget” systems, which arise from the compaction of large, active star-forming disks, and the “red nuggets,” which are red and passive compact galaxies. These objects are typically only observable with space telescopes, and detailed studies of their size, mass, and stellar population parameters have been conducted on relatively small samples. Strong gravitational lensing can offer a new opportunity to study them in detail, even with ground-based observations. In this study, we present the first six bona fide samples of strongly lensed post-blue nugget (pBN) galaxies, which were discovered in the Kilo Degree Survey. By using the lensing-magnified luminosity from optical and near-infrared bands, we have derived robust structural and stellar population properties of the multiple images of the background sources. The pBN galaxies have very small sizes of R_eff < 1.3 kpc, high mass density inside 1 kpc of $\mathrm{log}({{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{1}/{M}_{\odot }\,{\mathrm{kpc}}^{-2})\gt 9.3$, and low specific star formation rates of $\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{sSFR}\,{\mathrm{Gyr}}^{-1})\lesssim 0$, The size-mass and Σ₁-mass relations of this sample are consistent with those of the red nuggets, while their sSFR is close to the lower end of compact star-forming blue nugget systems at the same redshift, suggesting a clear evolutionary link between them.