A Census of the Bright z=8.5-11 Universe with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes in the CANDELS Fields

Understand

We present the results from a new search for candidate galaxies at z ~ 8.5-11 discovered over the 850 arcmin^2 area probed by the Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS).

• We use a photometric redshift selection including both Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope photometry to robustly identify galaxies in this epoch at F160W < 26.6.
• We use a detailed vetting procedure, including screening for persistence, stellar contamination, inclusion of ground-based imaging, and followup space-based imaging to build a robust sample of 11 candidate galaxies, three presented here for the first time.
• The inclusion of Spitzer/IRAC photometry in the selection process reduces contamination, and yields more robust redshift estimates than Hubble alone.