Finding High-redshift Galaxies with JWST
Abstract
One of the primary goals for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope is to observe the first galaxies. Predictions for planned and proposed surveys have typically focused on average galaxy counts, assuming a random distribution of galaxies across the observed field. The first and most-massive galaxies, however, are expected to be tightly clustered, an effect known as cosmic variance. We show that cosmic variance is likely to be the dominant contribution to uncertainty for high-redshift mass and luminosity functions, and that median high-redshift and high-mass galaxy counts for planned observations lie significantly below average counts. Several different strategies are considered for improving our understanding of the first galaxies, including adding depth, area, and independent pointings. Adding independent pointings is shown to be the most efficient both for discovering the single highest-redshift galaxy and also for constraining mass and luminosity functions.
Additional Information
© 2021. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2020 December 9; revised 2021 September 21; accepted 2021 September 23; published 2021 December 7. The authors would like to thank Gabe Brammer, Iary Davidzon, Pascal Oesch, Claudia Scarlata, and John Weaver for useful discussions. C.L.S. is supported by ERC grant 648179 "ConTExt." The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant No. 140.Attached Files
Published - Steinhardt_2021_ApJ_923_8.pdf
Accepted Version - 2111.14865.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 112250
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20211207-393274000
- 648179
- European Research Council (ERC)
- 140
- Danish National Research Foundation
- Created
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2021-12-07Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-02-01Created from EPrint's last_modified field