{"id":"doi:10.1093/mnras/stae2037","kind":"article","title":"JWST PRIMER: a new multifield determination of the evolving galaxy UV luminosity function at redshifts z ≃ 9 – 15","authors":["Callum T. Donnan","R. J. McLure","J. S. Dunlop","Derek J. McLeod","Daniel K. Magee","Karla Z. Arellano-Córdova","Laia Barrufet","R Begley","R. A. A. Bowler","Adam C. Carnall","Fergus Cullen","Richard S. Ellis","A. Fontana","Garth D. Illingworth","Norman A. Grogin","M. L. Hamadouche","Anton M. Koekemoer","Feng-Yuan Frey Liu","Charlotte A. Mason","Paola Santini","T. M. Stanton"],"author_count":21,"year":2024,"published":"2024-08-24","venue":"Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society","cited_by":175,"doi":"10.1093/mnras/stae2037","arxiv_id":null,"nct_id":null,"source_url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2037","archive_url":"https://space-kitty.com/papers/doi:10.1093/mnras/stae2037","updated":null,"pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"openalex_id":"W4401895417","pdf_url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We present a new determination of the evolving galaxy ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function (LF) over the redshift range $8.5< z< 15.5$ using a combination of several major Cycle-1 JWST imaging programmes – Public Release IMaging for Extragalactic Research, JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, and Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public Survey. This multifield approach yields a total of $\\simeq 370$ arcmin2 of JWST/NIRCam imaging, reaching (5-$\\sigma$) depths of $\\simeq 30$ AB mag in the deepest regions. We select a sample of 2548 galaxies with a significant probability of lying at high redshift ($p(z> 8.5)> 0.05$) to undertake a statistical calculation of the UV LF. Our new measurements span $\\simeq 4$ mag in UV luminosity at $z=9-12.5$, placing new constraints on both the shape and evolution of the LF at early times. Our measurements yield a new estimate of the early evolution of cosmic star-formation rate density ($\\rho _{\\rm {SFR}}$) confirming the gradual decline deduced from early JWST studies, at least out to $z \\simeq 12$. Finally we show that the observed early evolution of the galaxy UV LF (and $\\rho _{\\rm {SFR}}$) can be reproduced in a ${\\rm \\Lambda }$cold dark matter Universe, with no change in dust properties or star-formation efficiency required out to $z \\simeq 12$. Instead, a progressive trend towards younger stellar population ages can reproduce the observations, and the typical ages required at $z \\simeq$ 8, 9, 10, and 11 all converge on $\\simeq 380-330$ Myr after the big bang, indicative of a rapid emergence of early galaxies at $z \\simeq 12 - 13$. This is consistent with the first indications of a steeper drop-off in $\\rho _{\\rm {SFR}}$ we find beyond $z \\simeq 13$, possibly reflecting the rapid evolution of the halo mass function at earlier times.","abstract_license":"CC-BY (publisher license, via OpenAlex)","license":"cc-by","is_open_access":true,"retracted":false,"peer_reviewed":null,"categories":["Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena"],"details":null,"provenance":"openalex","attribution":"Abstract of \"JWST PRIMER: a new multifield determination of the evolving galaxy UV luminosity function at redshifts z ≃ 9 – 15\" by Callum T. Donnan, R. J. McLure, J. S. Dunlop et al., https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2037, used under its Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY); markup removed, otherwise unmodified.","topics":[{"slug":"early-universe-jwst","name":"JWST & the Early Universe","domain_slug":"astro"}],"cited_in_dossiers":[{"slug":"early-universe-jwst","title":"JWST & the Early Universe: State of the Field (October 2026)","url":"https://space-kitty.com/dossiers/early-universe-jwst"}]}