Abstract
With its exquisite sensitivity, wavelength coverage, and spatial and spectral
resolution, the James Webb Space Telescope is poised to revolutionise our view
of the distant, high-redshift ($z>5$) Universe. While Webb's spectroscopic
observations will be transformative for the field, photometric observations
play a key role in identifying distant objects and providing more comprehensive
samples than accessible to spectroscopy alone. In addition to identifying
objects, photometric observations can also be used to infer physical properties
and thus be used to constrain galaxy formation models. However, inferred
physical properties from broadband photometric observations, particularly in
the absence of spectroscopic redshifts, often have large uncertainties. With
the development of new tools for forward modelling simulations it is now
routinely possible to predict observational quantities, enabling a direct
comparison with observations. With this in mind, in this work, we make
predictions for the colour evolution of galaxies at $z=5-15$ using the FLARES:
First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations cosmological hydrodynamical
simulation suite. We predict a complex evolution, driven predominantly by
strong nebular line emission passing through individual bands. These
predictions are in good agreement with existing constraints from Hubble and
Spitzer as well as some of the first results from Webb. We also contrast our
predictions with other models in the literature: while the general trends are
similar we find key differences, particularly in the strength of features
associated with strong nebular line emission. This suggests photometric
observations alone should provide useful discriminating power between different
models.
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