CEERS Key Paper I: An Early Look into the First 500 Myr of Galaxy Formation with JWST
Creators: name: Finkelstein, Steven L.
name: Bagley, Micaela B.
name: Ferguson, Henry C.
name: Wilkins, Stephen M.
name: Kartaltepe, Jeyhan S.
name: Papovich, Casey
name: Yung, L. Y. Aaron
name: Haro, Pablo Arrabal
name: Behroozi, Peter
name: Dickinson, Mark
name: Kocevski, Dale D.
name: Koekemoer, Anton M.
name: Larson, Rebecca L.
name: Bail, Aurelien Le
name: Morales, Alexa M.
name: Perez-Gonzalez, Pablo G.
name: Burgarella, Denis
name: Dave, Romeel
name: Hirschmann, Michaela
name: Somerville, Rachel S.
name: Wuyts, Stijn
name: Bromm, Volker
name: Casey, Caitlin M.
name: Fontana, Adriano
name: Fujimoto, Seiji
name: Gardner, Jonathan P.
name: Giavalisco, Mauro
name: Grazian, Andrea
name: Grogin, Norman A.
name: Hathi, Nimish P.
name: Hutchison, Taylor A.
name: Jha, Saurabh W.
name: Jogee, Shardha
name: Kewley, Lisa J.
name: Kirkpatrick, Allison
name: Long, Arianna S.
name: Lotz, Jennifer M.
name: Pentericci, Laura
name: Pierel, Justin D. R.
name: Pirzkal, Nor
name: Ravindranath, Swara
name: Ryan, Russell E.
name: Trump, Jonathan R.
name: Yang, Guang
name: Bhatawdekar, Rachana
name: Bisigello, Laura
name: Buat, Veronique
name: Calabro, Antonello
name: Castellano, Marco
name: Cleri, Nikko J.
name: Cooper, M. C.
name: Croton, Darren
name: Daddi, Emanuele
name: Dekel, Avishai
name: Elbaz, David
name: Franco, Maximilien
name: Gawiser, Eric
name: Holwerda, Benne W.
name: Huertas-Company, Marc
name: Jaskot, Anne E.
name: Leung, Gene C. K.
name: Lucas, Ray A.
name: Mobasher, Bahram
name: Pandya, Viraj
name: Tacchella, Sandro
name: Weiner, Benjamin J.
name: Zavala, Jorge A.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present an investigation into the first 500 Myr of galaxy evolution from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. CEERS, one of 13 JWST ERS programs, targets galaxy formation from z~0.5 to z&gt;10 using several imaging and spectroscopic modes. We make use of the first epoch of CEERS NIRCam imaging, spanning 35.5 sq. arcmin, to search for candidate galaxies at z&gt;9. Following a detailed data reduction process implementing several custom steps to produce high-quality reduced images, we perform multi-band photometry across seven NIRCam broad and medium-band (and six Hubble broadband) filters focusing on robust colors and accurate total fluxes. We measure photometric redshifts and devise a robust set of selection criteria to identify a sample of 26 galaxy candidates at z~9-16. These objects are compact with a median half-light radius of ~0.5 kpc. We present an early estimate of the z~11 rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function, finding that the number density of galaxies at M_UV ~ -20 appears to evolve very little from z~9 to z~11. We also find that the abundance (surface density [arcmin^-2]) of our candidates exceeds nearly all theoretical predictions. We explore potential implications, including that at z&gt;10 star formation may be dominated by top-heavy initial mass functions, which would result in an increased ratio of UV light per unit halo mass, though a complete lack of dust attenuation and/or changing star-formation physics may also play a role. While spectroscopic confirmation of these sources is urgently required, our results suggest that the deeper views to come with JWST should yield prolific samples of ultra-high-redshift galaxies with which to further explore these conclusions.
description: Replaced with published version