Resolving the Ionizing Photon Budget Crisis with JWST/NIRCam H ii Clumping Constraints at z ≃ 6

We present a comprehensive study of the ionizing properties of 1721 galaxies at 5.6 < z < 6.5 using deep JWST/NIRCam photometric imaging from the North Ecliptic Pole, JADES, and PRIMER surveys spanning an unmasked area ∼550 arcmin 2 across UV magnitudes −22 ≲ M UV ≲ −17.5. Our 90% stellar mass complete sample suggests little relation of UV slope with magnitude, β UV = ( − 0.040 ± 0.022 ) M UV − 2.8 8 − 0.44 + 0.43 , implying f esc LyC ≃ 5% based on calibrations from the Low-redshift Lyman Continuum Survey (LzLCS). We measure a constant ionizing photon production efficiency with UV magnitude, log 10 ( ξ ion , 0 / Hz erg − 1 ) = − 0.00 6 − 0.017 + 0.019 M UV + 25.0 5 − 0.34 + 0.39 , consistent with Hubble Space Telescope (HST) canonical values. The total production rate of photons escaping into the intergalactic medium (IGM) is computed as log 10 ( n ̇ ion / s − 1 Mpc − 3 ) = 50.3 1 − 0.06