Finding High-Redshift Galaxies with JWST
  One of the primary goals for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
is to observe the first galaxies. Predictions for planned and proposed surveys
have typically focused on average galaxy counts, assuming a random distribution
of galaxies across the observed field. The first and most massive galaxies,
however, are expected to be tightly clustered, an effect known as cosmic
variance. We show that cosmic variance is likely to be the dominant
contribution to uncertainty for high-redshift mass and luminosity functions,
and that median high-redshift and high-mass galaxy counts for planned
observations lie significantly below average counts. Several different
strategies are considered for improving our understanding of the first
galaxies, including adding depth, area, and independent pointings. Adding
independent pointings is shown to be the most efficient both for discovering
the single highest-redshift galaxy and also for constraining mass and
luminosity functions.
