Cake Talk by Lilly Whitler
The rest-frame UV luminosity function and evolution thereof is a crucial component of understanding star formation in the early universe, and how star-forming galaxies contributed to cosmic reionization. With the advent of JWST, an unexpectedly large abundance of luminous galaxies at unexpectedly high redshifts has been discovered, potentially pointing to previously unknown factors governing early star formation (e.g. an evolving star formation efficiency, a top-heavy stellar initial mass function, UV variability, etc.). In this talk, I will present the UV luminosity functions at z~9–15 derived from several hundred galaxies identified in the full ~160 square arcminutes of JADES NIRCam imaging, providing insights into the UV luminosity function and cosmic UV luminosity density spanning over two orders of magnitude in luminosity and reaching down to faint luminosities of M_UV ~ -16.5 at z~9–12. I will discuss the evolution of the luminosity function over ~300 million years of cosmic time, then place these observational results in context with theoretical expectations for the abundance of early galaxies.