Related papers: Feedback from first radiation sources: H- photodis…
The (re)ionisation of hydrogen in the early universe has a profound effect on the formation of the first galaxies: by raising the gas temperature and pressure, it prevents gas from cooling into small haloes thus affecting the abundance of…
The intergalactic medium was reionized before redshift z~6, most likely by starlight which escaped from early galaxies. The very first stars formed when hydrogen molecules (H2) cooled gas inside the smallest galaxies, minihalos of mass…
Fragments from organic molecule dissociation (such as reactive ions and radicals) can form interstellar complex molecules like amino acids. The goal of this work is to experimentally study photoionization and photodissociation processes of…
The temporal evolution of the ionizing UV background radiation field at high redshift provides a probe of the evolution of the early star formation rate. By comparing the observed levels of absorption in the highest redshift quasar spectra…
The formation of the first generations of stars at redshifts z > 15-20 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the universe to one of increasing complexity. We here review recent progress in understanding the assembly…
We use a self-consistent model of galaxy formation and the evolution of the intergalactic medium to study the effects of the reionization of the universe at high redshift on the properties of satellite galaxies like those seen around the…
We determine the abundance of i'-band drop-outs in the HST/ACS GOODS surveys and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF). The majority of these sources are likely to be z~6 galaxies whose flux decrement arises from Lyman-alpha absorption. We have…
Ionization fronts, the sharp radiation fronts behind which H/He ionizing photons from massive stars and galaxies propagate through space, were ubiquitous in the universe from its earliest times. The cosmic dark ages ended with the formation…
We study the formation of molecular hydrogen, after the epoch of re-ionization, in the context of canonical galaxy formation theory due to hierarchical clustering. There is an initial epoch of $H_2$ production in the gas phase through the…
We study the evolution of gas in HII regions around the first stars after the death of the exciting stars. If the first star in a small halo dies without supernova (SN), subsequent star formation is possible in the same halo. We thus…
Reionization represents an important phase in the history of our Universe when ultraviolet radiation from the first luminous sources, primarily stars and accreting black holes, ionized the neutral hydrogen atoms in the intergalactic medium…
The first stars are thought to be one of the dominant sources of hydrogen reionization in the early Universe, with their high luminosities and surface temperatures expected to drive high ionizing photon production rates. In this work, we…
The first generation of protogalaxies likely formed out of primordial gas via H2-cooling in cosmological minihalos with virial temperatures of a few 1000K. However, their abundance is likely to have been severely limited by feedback…
Radiative feedback from populations II stars played a vital role in early structure formation. Particularly, photons below the Lyman limit can escape the star forming regions and produce a background ultraviolet (UV) flux which consequently…
We estimate the maximum contribution to reionization from the first generation of massive stars, with zero metallicity, under the assumption that one of these stars forms with a fixed mass in every collapsed halo in which metal-free gas is…
Photon initiated chemistry, \textit{i.e.} the interaction of light with chemical species, is a key factor in the evolution of the atmosphere of exoplanets. For planets orbiting stars in UV-rich environments, photodissociation induced by…
The ability of primordial gas to cool in proto-galactic haloes exposed to Lyman-Werner (LW) radiation is critically dependent on the self-shielding of H_2. We perform radiative transfer calculations of LW line photons, post-processing…
We use three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the effects of a transient photoionizing ultraviolet (UV) flux on the collapse and cooling of pregalactic clouds. These clouds have masses in the range 10^5 -10^7 M_sun, form…
The reionization epoch concludes when ionizing photons reach every corner of the Universe. Reionization has generally been assumed to be limited primarily by the rate at which galaxies produce ionizing photons, but the recent measurement of…
The atomic-to-molecular hydrogen (H/H2) transition has been extensively studied as it controls the fraction of gas in a molecular state in an interstellar cloud. This fraction is linked to star-formation by the Schmidt-Kennicutt law. While…