Accelerated evolution of galaxy host halo masses during Cosmic Dawn from deep JWST clustering

Abstract

We present the deepest clustering analysis of early galaxies to date, analysing $N_{\rm {g}} \simeq 6500$ photometrically-selected Lyman Break Galaxies from JWST’s Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) to reveal how galaxies and dark matter evolved during cosmic dawn ($5 \le z < 11$). Using halo occupation distribution (HOD) modelling of the two-point angular correlation function, we trace the galaxy–halo relationships across the first billion years of cosmic history. Our analysis reveals that galaxies at $z = 10.6$ reside in dark matter haloes over an order of magnitude less massive ($M_{\rm {h}} \sim 10^{10.12}\, {\rm M}_{\odot }$) than their counterpar..