Simulated SMFs from the ΛCDM run (solid black curves) and the runs modeling cosmic strings with string tension Gμ = 10⁻⁸ (solid red curves) and Gμ = 10⁻¹⁰ (solid blue curves) with Poisson errors (shaded error bands) at redshifts z = 6 to z = 14. Vertical dash-dotted lines in the corresponding colors show the median stellar mass of halos within the first 95% complete halo mass bin to provide an indication of the typical minimum stellar mass of numerically well-resolved galaxies (see text). Dashed black curves show the Schechter fit of the simulated SMFs from K23, serving as an additional reference for standard ΛCDM cosmology from higher-resolution and larger-volume simulations using the same galaxy formation model as our runs. We show results from their closest available output redshift z_K23 ∼ 15 in the z = 14 panel, indicating the slight redshift discrepancy with a reduced opacity of the dashed curve. Observational JWST data from Weibel et al. (2024), Navarro-Carrera et al. (2024), and Harvey et al. (2025) are shown as gray symbols (at the closest integer redshift, where applicable). Additionally, the dashed green line in the lower right panel indicates the stellar mass of the spectroscopically confirmed massive z ∼ 14 galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 (Carniani et al. 2024). The predicted number density from our CS-8 runs for such a galaxy at z = 14 exceeds the ΛCDM prediction of K23 at their output redshift z_K23 ∼ 15 (z_K23 ∼ 12) by roughly 3.5 (1.5) orders of magnitude.