2011MNRAS.414..847S

Recent observations have gathered a considerable sample of high-redshift galaxy candidates and determined the evolution of their luminosity function (LF). To interpret these findings, we use cosmological SPH simulations including, in addition to standard physical processes, a detailed treatment of the Pop III-Pop II transition in early objects. The simulated high-z galaxies match remarkably well the amplitude and slope of the observed LF in the redshift range 5 < z < 10. The LF shifts towards fainter luminosities with increasing redshift, while its faint-end slope keeps an almost constant value, α ≈ -2. The stellar populations of high-z galaxies have ages of 100–300 (40–130) Myr at z= 5 (z= 7–8), implying an early (z > 9.4) start of their star formation activity; the specific star formation rate is almost independent of galactic stellar mass. These objects are enriched rapidly with metals and galaxies identified by HST/WFC3 ({img}) show metallicities ≈ 0.1 Z_☉ even at z= 7–8. Most of the simulated galaxies at z ≈ 7 (noticeably the smallest ones) are virtually dust-free, and none of them has an extinction larger than E(B-V) = 0.01. The bulk (50 per cent) of the ionizing photons is produced by objects populating the faint end of the LF ({img}), which JWST will resolve up to z= 7.3. Pop III stars continue to form essentially at all redshifts; however, at z= 6 (z= 10) the contribution of Pop III stars to the total galactic luminosity is always less than 5 per cent for {img} ({img}). The typical high-z galaxies closely resemble the GRB host galaxy population observed at lower redshifts, strongly encouraging the use of GRBs to detect the first galaxies.