Semi-analytic forecasts for JWST – II. Physical properties and scaling relations for galaxies at z = 4–10

ABSTRACT The long anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to directly detect large samples of galaxies at very high redshift. Using the well-established, computationally efficient Santa Cruz semi-analytic model, with recently implemented multiphase gas partitioning, and H2-based star formation recipes, we make predictions for a wide variety of galaxy properties for galaxy populations at z = 4–10. In this work, we provide forecasts for the physical properties of high-redshift galaxies and links to their photometric properties. With physical parameters calibrated only to z ∼ 0 observations, our model predictions are in good agreement with current observational constraints on stellar mass and star formation rate distribution functions up to z ∼ 8. We also provide predictions representing wide, deep, and lensed JWST survey configurations. We study the redshift evolution of key galaxy properties and the scaling relations among them. Taking advantage of our models’ high computational efficiency, we study the impact of systematically varying the model parameters. All distribution functions and scaling relations presented in this work are available at https://www.simonsfoundation.org/semi-analytic-forecasts-for-jwst/.