On the expected purity of photometric galaxy surveys targeting the Cosmic Dawn

Abstract

Over the last three decades, photometric galaxy selection using the Lyman-break technique has transformed our understanding of the high-z Universe, providing large samples of galaxies at 3 < z < 8 with relatively small contamination. With the advent of the James Webb Space Telescope, the Lyman-break technique has now been extended to z ~ 17. However, the purity of the resulting samples has not been tested. Here we use a simple model, built on the robust foundation of the dark matter halo mass function, to show that the expected level of contamination rises dramatically at z > 10, especially for luminous galaxies, placing stringent requirements on the selection process. The most luminous sources at z > 12 are likely at least ten thousand times rarer than potential contaminants, so extensive spectroscopic followup campaigns may be required to identify a small number of target sources.