Explaining JWST counts with galaxy formation models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Manzoni, Giorgio, Broadhurst, Tom, Lim, Jeremy, Liu, Tao, Smoot, George, Baugh, Carlton M., Tompkins, Scott, Windhorst, Rogier, Driver, Simon, Carleton, Timothy, Frye, Brenda, Fung, Leo, Zhang, Jiashuo, Cohen, Seth H., Conselice, Christopher J., Grogin, Norman A., Jansen, Rolf A., Koekemoer, Anton M., Ortiz III, Rafael, Pirzkal, Norbert, Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Manzoni, Giorgio
Broadhurst, Tom
Lim, Jeremy
Liu, Tao
Smoot, George
Baugh, Carlton M.
Tompkins, Scott
Windhorst, Rogier
Driver, Simon
Carleton, Timothy
Frye, Brenda
Fung, Leo
Zhang, Jiashuo
Cohen, Seth H.
Conselice, Christopher J.
Grogin, Norman A.
Jansen, Rolf A.
Koekemoer, Anton M.
Ortiz III, Rafael
Pirzkal, Norbert
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
author_facet Manzoni, Giorgio
Broadhurst, Tom
Lim, Jeremy
Liu, Tao
Smoot, George
Baugh, Carlton M.
Tompkins, Scott
Windhorst, Rogier
Driver, Simon
Carleton, Timothy
Frye, Brenda
Fung, Leo
Zhang, Jiashuo
Cohen, Seth H.
Conselice, Christopher J.
Grogin, Norman A.
Jansen, Rolf A.
Koekemoer, Anton M.
Ortiz III, Rafael
Pirzkal, Norbert
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
contents A distinct power-law break is apparent m_AB approximately 21 in the deep Near-Infrared PEARLS-JWST galaxy counts. The break becomes more pronounced at longer wavelengths, with the counts slope flattening smoothly with apparent magnitude in the shortest band used at 0.9 microns, trending towards an increasingly broken slope by the longest wavelength passband of JWST NIRCam, 4.4 microns. This behaviour is remarkably well predicted by the GALFORM semi-analytical model of galaxy formation. We use the model to diagnose the origin of this behaviour. We find that the features that are responsible for the break are: 1) the inherent break in the luminosity function; 2) the change in the volume element with redshift and 3) the redshift-dependent nature of the k-correction. We study the contribution to these effects by early and late-type galaxies, using as a proxy for morphology the bulge-to-total stellar mass ratio. We find that the way in which ellipticals populate the bright end of the luminosity function while spirals dominate the faint end is preserved in the galaxy number counts, with a characteristic stellar mass at the break of approximately 10^10 M_sun. We also find that the shape of the number counts is mainly driven by galaxies with relatively low redshift (z < 2) for the PEARLS observational limit of m_AB < 28. We give a comprehensive description of why the galaxy number counts in the near-infrared PEARLS-JWST observation look the way they do and which population of galaxies is dominant at each apparent magnitude.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_04702
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Explaining JWST counts with galaxy formation models
Manzoni, Giorgio
Broadhurst, Tom
Lim, Jeremy
Liu, Tao
Smoot, George
Baugh, Carlton M.
Tompkins, Scott
Windhorst, Rogier
Driver, Simon
Carleton, Timothy
Frye, Brenda
Fung, Leo
Zhang, Jiashuo
Cohen, Seth H.
Conselice, Christopher J.
Grogin, Norman A.
Jansen, Rolf A.
Koekemoer, Anton M.
Ortiz III, Rafael
Pirzkal, Norbert
Willmer, Christopher N. A.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
A distinct power-law break is apparent m_AB approximately 21 in the deep Near-Infrared PEARLS-JWST galaxy counts. The break becomes more pronounced at longer wavelengths, with the counts slope flattening smoothly with apparent magnitude in the shortest band used at 0.9 microns, trending towards an increasingly broken slope by the longest wavelength passband of JWST NIRCam, 4.4 microns. This behaviour is remarkably well predicted by the GALFORM semi-analytical model of galaxy formation. We use the model to diagnose the origin of this behaviour. We find that the features that are responsible for the break are: 1) the inherent break in the luminosity function; 2) the change in the volume element with redshift and 3) the redshift-dependent nature of the k-correction. We study the contribution to these effects by early and late-type galaxies, using as a proxy for morphology the bulge-to-total stellar mass ratio. We find that the way in which ellipticals populate the bright end of the luminosity function while spirals dominate the faint end is preserved in the galaxy number counts, with a characteristic stellar mass at the break of approximately 10^10 M_sun. We also find that the shape of the number counts is mainly driven by galaxies with relatively low redshift (z < 2) for the PEARLS observational limit of m_AB < 28. We give a comprehensive description of why the galaxy number counts in the near-infrared PEARLS-JWST observation look the way they do and which population of galaxies is dominant at each apparent magnitude.
title Explaining JWST counts with galaxy formation models
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.04702