Investigating cosmic strings using large-volume hydrodynamical simulations in the context of JWST's massive UV-bright galaxies

Understand

Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered an unexpectedly large abundance of massive, UV-bright galaxies at high redshifts, presenting a significant challenge to established galaxy formation models within the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmological framework.

• Cosmic strings, predicted by a wide range of particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model, provide a promising potential explanation for these observations.
• They may act as additional gravitational seeds in the early universe, enhancing the process of high-redshift structure formation, potentially resulting in a more substantial population of massive, efficiently star-forming galaxies.
• We numerically investigate this prediction in large-volume hydrodynamical simulations using the moving-mesh code AREPO and the well-tested IllustrisTNG galaxy formation model.