{"paper":{"title":"Too many protoclusters? Reconciling the overabundance of cluster progenitors within the first billion years of the Universe","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["astro-ph.CO"],"primary_cat":"astro-ph.GA","authors_text":"Callum Witten, Chamilla Terp, Emma Giovinazzo, Jake S. Bennett, Jakob M. Helton, Kasper E. Heintz, Pascal A. Oesch, Romain A. Meyer, Seunghwan Lim, Thomas Herard-Demanche, William McClymont","submitted_at":"2026-05-27T18:00:00Z","abstract_excerpt":"JWST has revealed an overabundance of apparent (`Coma'-like) cluster progenitors at $z>5$ that is $\\sim$ two (300) times in excess of, and in $2.3\\sigma$ ($4\\sigma$) tension with, the number density of such objects at present day and theoretical predictions from $\\Lambda$CDM. We present an analysis of protocluster candidates between $5<z<9$ from the literature, and in the TNG-Cluster and TNG300 simulations, aimed at resolving this tension. We first identify an inconsistency in how protocluster candidates are characterised: observational halo masses are estimated by summing the stellar mass ove"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2605.28930","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.28930/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}