Do JWST Early Galaxies Pose a Crisis for Cosmology?

Early JWST data has indicated a possible crisis for ΛCDM cosmology. The data revealed two galaxy candidates at redshifts 7 - 10 with very high stellar mass, implying a baryon-to-stellar-mass conversion efficiency of over 80%. This is extremely high given that, according to prior work on models of early galaxy formation, even an efficiency greater than 57% is considered implausibly high. In this work, we analyze the assumptions and model-dependencies involved in interpreting the JWST results, and we account for the error in the efficiency curves inherited from the uncertainty in the halo mass function and the uncertainty in the mass measurements. In this presentation, I will discuss the surprising findings and their implications for our understanding of early galaxy formation, challenging the current paradigms in cosmology.