51st Heidelberg Physics Graduate Days

COSMIC DAWN AND GALAXY FORMATION WITH THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE AND FUTURE ASTRONOMICAL FACILITIES

Sarah Bosman

Just one year after the James Webb Space Telescope delivered its first images, our view of galaxy formation has already been significantly challenged. As expected, galaxies have been found by JWST up to record-breaking distances at redshifts z>10; however, many of the observed properties of these early galaxies conflict with current models of galaxy formation. In particular, the stellar masses of early galaxies as measured with JWST data have been speculated to be so high as to challenge current models of cosmological structure formation. We will review the principles of galaxy formation which led to our expectations for the properties of the first galaxies before JWST, and how these expectations have been confirmed or challenged in the past year.

The following topics will be covered:

• Principles of galaxy formation; overview of observational methods and knowledge before JWST.
   
• The epoch of reionisation and expectations for the first galaxies from cosmology.
   
• Origins of the first supermassive black holes.
   
• Overview of JWST instruments: strengths, weaknesses and challenges.
   
• Early results from the first year of JWST.
   
• The future: the Euclid telescope, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, and others.