TY - JOUR
T1 - The Supersonic Project
T2 - Lighting Up the Faint End of the JWST UV Luminosity Function
AU - Williams, Claire E.
AU - Lake, William
AU - Naoz, Smadar
AU - Burkhart, Blakesley
AU - Treu, Tommaso
AU - Marinacci, Federico
AU - Nakazato, Yurina
AU - Vogelsberger, Mark
AU - Yoshida, Naoki
AU - Chiaki, Gen
AU - Chiou, Yeou S.
AU - Chen, Avi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2024/1/1
Y1 - 2024/1/1
N2 - The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is capable of probing extremely early eras of our Universe, when the supersonic relative motions between dark matter and baryonic overdensities modulate structure formation (z ≳ 10). We study low-mass galaxy formation, including this “stream velocity,” using high-resolution AREPO hydrodynamics simulations and present theoretical predictions of the UV luminosity function (UVLF) and galaxy stellar mass function down to extremely faint and low-mass galaxies (M UV ≳ −15, 104 M ⊙ ≤ M * ≤ 108 M ⊙). We show that, although the stream velocity suppresses early star formation overall, it induces a short period of rapid star formation in some larger dwarfs, leading to an enhancement in the faint end of the UVLF at z = 12. We demonstrate that JWST observations are close to this enhanced regime and propose that the UVLF may constitute an important probe of the stream velocity at high redshift for JWST and future observatories.
AB - The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is capable of probing extremely early eras of our Universe, when the supersonic relative motions between dark matter and baryonic overdensities modulate structure formation (z ≳ 10). We study low-mass galaxy formation, including this “stream velocity,” using high-resolution AREPO hydrodynamics simulations and present theoretical predictions of the UV luminosity function (UVLF) and galaxy stellar mass function down to extremely faint and low-mass galaxies (M UV ≳ −15, 104 M ⊙ ≤ M * ≤ 108 M ⊙). We show that, although the stream velocity suppresses early star formation overall, it induces a short period of rapid star formation in some larger dwarfs, leading to an enhancement in the faint end of the UVLF at z = 12. We demonstrate that JWST observations are close to this enhanced regime and propose that the UVLF may constitute an important probe of the stream velocity at high redshift for JWST and future observatories.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182372836&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85182372836&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ad1491
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ad1491
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85182372836
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 960
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 2
M1 - L16
ER -