Abstract:
In this talk, I will summarize growing observational evidence from JWST that suggests accelerated structure formation in the early universe. Some are challenging canonical galaxy formation models in the standard LambdaCDM cosmology. I will begin by briefly reviewing potential resolutions to these tensions within the standard cosmological framework. Then I will focus on two extensions beyond the standard model that offer promising explanations for the anomalies. The first is early dark energy (EDE), a phenomenological model that introduces an additional energy component active prior to recombination. EDE not only provides a compelling solution to the Hubble tension but also naturally promotes early structure formation, offering a unified explanation for multiple cosmological tensions. The second is self-interacting dark matter, which can induce gravothermal collapse in massive halos in the early universe, potentially seeding supermassive black holes (SMBHs). This mechanism may account for some of the peculiar faint obscured SMBHs (the so-called "Little Red Dots") discovered by JWST.
