The physical processes shaping the first galaxies—gravity, gas dynamics, star formation, and feedback—have long been out of observational reach. With the first few years of JWST data, we are uncovering enigmatic sources, an unexpectedly rich population of early galaxies, and signs of highly episodic galactic growth. In this talk, I will present a series of vignettes from exceptionally deep JWST observations that push the horizon of detectable galaxies, probe the number density of the faintest galaxies just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, and discuss the sources that were once claimed to break our cosmological models. As a whole, these observations stringently test our framework for structure formation under the standard lambda-CDM paradigm and reveal a dynamic early universe that is shaped by processes that we are only now glimpsing.
John Chisholm, Assistant Professor, University of Texas-Austin
Host: Allison Strom