The cosmic star formation history (CSFH) and cosmic active galactic nuclei (AGN) luminosity history (CAGNH) are self consistently measured at z=5.5−13.5. This is achieved by analyzing galaxies detected by the James Webb Space Telescope from ≈400arcmin2 fields from the PEARLS, CEERS, NGDEEP, JADES and PRIMER surveys. In particular, the combination of spectral energy distribution fitting codes, EAZY and \textsc{ProSpect}, are employed to estimate the photometric redshifts and astrophysical quantities of 3751 distant galaxies, from which we compute the stellar mass, star formation rate and AGN luminosity distribution functions in four redshift bins. Integrating the distribution functions, we find that the CSFH rises by ≈1~dex over z=13.5−5.5 and the CAGNH rises by ≈1~dex over z=10.5−5.5. We connect our results of the CSFH and CAGNH at z=13.5−5.5 to that from z=5−0 to determine the summary of ≳13 Gyr of star formation and AGN activity, from the very onset of galaxy formation to the present day.
@article{arxiv.2503.03431,
title = {Self-Consistent JWST Census of Star Formation and AGN activity at z=5.5-13.5},
author = {Jordan C. J. D'Silva and Simon P. Driver and Claudia D. P. Lagos and Aaron S. G. Robotham and Nathan J. Adams and Christopher J. Conselice and Brenda Frye and Nimish P. Hathi and Thomas Harvey and Rafael Ortiz and Massimo Ricotti and Clayton Robertson and Ross M. Silver and Stephen M. Wilkins and Christopher N. A. Willmer and Rogier A. Windhorst and Seth H. Cohen and Rolf A. Jansen and Jake Summers and Anton M. Koekemoer and Dan Coe and Norman A. Grogin and Madeline A. Marshall and Mario Nonino and Nor Pirzkal and Russell E. Ryan, and Haojing Yan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.03431},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
24 pages, 11 figures, Recommended for publication in Astrophysical Journal after addressing the referee report