A Census of the Bright z=8.5-11 Universe with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes in the CANDELS Fields

TL;DR

This study identifies and analyzes candidate galaxies at redshifts 8.5-11 using Hubble and Spitzer data, constraining the ultraviolet luminosity function and exploring galaxy evolution during this early epoch.

Contribution

It introduces a robust photometric redshift selection method combining Hubble and Spitzer data, and presents new candidate galaxies and luminosity function constraints at z~8.5-11.

Findings

Consistent galaxy abundance with simulation predictions at bright luminosities.

Detection of a potential galaxy overdensity in the EGS field.

Uncertainty remains whether the luminosity function declines smoothly or accelerates at z>8.

Abstract

We present the results from a new search for candidate galaxies at z ~ 8.5-11 discovered over the 850 arcmin^2 area probed by the Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS). We use a photometric redshift selection including both Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope photometry to robustly identify galaxies in this epoch at F160W < 26.6. We use a detailed vetting procedure, including screening for persistence, stellar contamination, inclusion of ground-based imaging, and followup space-based imaging to build a robust sample of 11 candidate galaxies, three presented here for the first time. The inclusion of Spitzer/IRAC photometry in the selection process reduces contamination, and yields more robust redshift estimates than Hubble alone. We constrain the evolution of the rest-frame ultraviolet luminosity function via a new method of calculating the observed number densities without choosing a prior magnitude bin size. We find that the abundance at our brightest probed luminosities (M_UV=-22.3) is consistent with predictions from simulations which assume that galaxies in this epoch have gas depletion times at least as short as those in nearby starburst galaxies. Due to large Poisson and cosmic variance uncertainties we cannot conclusively rule out either a smooth evolution of the luminosity function continued from z=4-8, or an accelerate decline at z > 8. We calculate that the presence of seven galaxies in a single field (EGS) is an outlier at the 2-sigma significance level, implying the discovery of a significant overdensity. These scenarios will be imminently testable to high confidence within the first year of observations of the James Webb Space Telescope.