Abstract
Early observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) indicate an
over-abundance of bright galaxies at redshifts z > 10 relative to
Hubble-calibrated model predictions. More puzzling still is the apparent lack
of evolution in the abundance of such objects between z ~ 9 and the highest
redshifts yet probed, z ~ 13-17. In this study, we first show that, despite a
poor match with JWST LFs, semi-empirical models calibrated to UVLFs and colours
at 4 < z < 8 are largely consistent with constraints on the properties of
individual JWST galaxies, including their stellar masses, ages, and
rest-ultraviolet spectral slopes. We then show that order-of-magnitude scatter
in the star formation rate of galaxies (at fixed halo mass) can indeed boost
the abundance of bright galaxies, provided that star formation is more
efficient than expected in low-mass halos. However, this solution to the
abundance problem introduces tension elsewhere: because it relies on the
up-scattering of low-mass halos into bright magnitude bins, one expects typical
ages, masses, and spectral slopes to be much lower than constraints from
galaxies observed thus far. This tension can be alleviated by non-negligible
reddening, suggesting that - if the first batch of photometrically-selected
candidates are confirmed - star formation and dust production could be more
efficient than expected in galaxies at z > 10.
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