Steinhardt, Charles L. and Jespersen, Christian Kragh and Linzer, Nora B. (2021) Finding High-redshift Galaxies with JWST. Astrophysical Journal, 923 (1). Art. No. 8. ISSN 0004-637X. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac2a2f. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20211207-393274000
![]() |
PDF
- Published Version
See Usage Policy. 1MB |
![]() |
PDF
- Accepted Version
See Usage Policy. 982kB |
Use this Persistent URL to link to this item: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20211207-393274000
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.
Item Type: | Article | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Related URLs: |
| |||||||||
ORCID: |
| |||||||||
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. | |||||||||
Funders: |
| |||||||||
Subject Keywords: | High-redshift galaxies; High-redshift galaxy clusters; Galaxy clusters; Large-scale structure of the universe; Cosmology | |||||||||
Issue or Number: | 1 | |||||||||
Classification Code: | Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: High-redshift galaxies (734); High-redshift galaxy clusters (2007); Galaxy clusters (584); Large-scale structure of the universe (902); Cosmology (343) | |||||||||
DOI: | 10.3847/1538-4357/ac2a2f | |||||||||
Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20211207-393274000 | |||||||||
Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20211207-393274000 | |||||||||
Official Citation: | Charles L. Steinhardt et al 2021 ApJ 923 8 | |||||||||
Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | |||||||||
ID Code: | 112250 | |||||||||
Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | |||||||||
Deposited By: | George Porter | |||||||||
Deposited On: | 07 Dec 2021 23:39 | |||||||||
Last Modified: | 01 Feb 2022 22:58 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page