Possible nonstellar explanation for the unexpected brightness of the earliest galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope's infrared observations revealed that the youngest spotted galaxies are larger and brighter than predicted by extrapolations from previous Hubble Space Telescope data, other observatories, and the ΛCDM model. Conventional explanations for these puzzling data require extraordinary and difficult-to-justify assumptions about galaxy evolution. We propose the inclusion of a newly identified source of radiation associated with matter consumption by black holes, to supplement galaxies' optical signatures. This radiation originates from neutral hydrogen abundantly present in interstellar space during the epoch of reionization and irradiated by high-energy photons released at the decay of Fermi spheres of electrons and protons in plasma compressed by a central black hole upon entering the black hole photon sphere. The decay of Fermi spheres occurs at the photon sphere rim where the Pauli exclusion principle is locally nullified due to a topological factor near the black hole singularity. Within the epoch of reionization, this effect naturally leads to additional recombination Lyman continuum radiation from abundant at [Formula: see text] intragalactic hydrogen illuminated by hard radiation from active galactic nucleus, which mimics approximately tenfold strengthening of galaxy starlight. This finding offers a compelling explanation for the observed higher luminosity of the youngest galaxies without requiring a revision of the conventional star-based luminosity function.