Related papers: The very first Pop III stars and their relation to…
Growing the supermassive black holes (~10^9 Msun) that power the detected luminous, highest redshift quasars (z > 6) from light seeds - the remnants of the first stars - within ~ 1 Gyr of the Big Bang poses a timing challenge for growth…
We investigate the formation of the first massive black holes in high redshift galaxies, with the goal of providing insights to which galaxies do or do not host massive black holes. We adopt a novel approach to forming seed black holes in…
We study the number and the distribution of low mass Pop III stars in the Milky Way. In our numerical model, hierarchical formation of dark matter minihalos and Milky Way sized halos are followed by a high resolution cosmological…
The chemical enrichment of the early Universe is a crucial element in the formation and evolution of galaxies, and Population III (PopIII) stars must play a vital role in this process. In this study, we examine metal enrichment from massive…
Finding the first generation of stars formed out of pristine gas in the early Universe, known as Population III (PopIII) stars, is one of the most important goals of modern astrophysics. Recent models have suggested that PopIII stars may…
Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses exceeding $10^6 \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ at redshifts $z > 8$, posing significant challenges to existing models of early black…
Population III (pop III) stars were born in halos characterised by a pristine gas composition. In such a halo, once the gas density reaches n$_{\mathrm{H}} \sim$ 1 cm$^{-3}$, molecular cooling leads to the collapse of the gas and the birth…
The collapse of baryons into extremely massive stars with masses exceeding 10^4 M_Sun in a small fraction of protogalaxies at z > 10 is a promising candidate for the origin of supermassive black holes, some of which grow to a billion solar…
Observations with WFC3/IR on the Hubble Space Telescope and the use of gravitational lensing techniques have facilitated the discovery of galaxies as far back as z ~ 10-12, a truly remarkable achievement. However, this rapid emergence of…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) constitute a compelling dark matter candidate whose gravitational effects could significantly influence early cosmic structure formation. We investigate the impact of PBHs on Population III star formation…
We investigate the transition from primordial Population III (Pop III) star formation to normal Pop II star formation in the first galaxies using new cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. We find that while the first stars seed their host…
We investigate the impact of massive primordial black holes (PBHs; $m_{\rm BH}\sim 10^6~M_{\odot}$) on the star formation and first galaxy assembly process using high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations from $z = 1100$ to $z \sim 9$. We…
We perform three-dimensional cosmological simulations to examine the growth of metal-free, Population III (Pop III) stars under radiative feedback. We begin our simulation at z=100 and trace the evolution of gas and dark matter until the…
High redshift quasars emit copious X-ray photons which heat the intergalactic medium to temperatures up to $\sim$ 10$^6$ K. At such high temperatures the primordial gas will not form stars until it is assembled into dark matter haloes with…
We explore the possibility of observing Population III (Pop~III) stars, born of the primordial gas. Pop~III stars with masses below $0.8 M_\odot$ should survive to date though are not observed yet, but the existence of stars with low…
We investigate the ab-initio formation of super-massive stars in a pristine atomic cooling halo. The halo is extracted from a larger self-consistent parent simulation. The halo remains metal-free and star formation is suppressed due to a…
We discuss a model for the early assembly of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical build-up far up in the dark halo `merger tree'. Motivated by the observations of luminous quasars around…
Population III stars were the first generation of stars, formed in minihalos of roughly primordial element abundances, and therefore metal-free. They are thought to have formed at the cores of dense dark matter clouds. Interactions between…
We investigate the formation of extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars that are observed in the Galactic halo and neighboring ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Their low metal abundances (${\rm [Fe/H]} < -3$) indicate that their parent clouds were…
The detection of quasars at $z>6$ unveils the presence of supermassive black holes (BHs) of a few billion solar masses. The rapid formation process of these extreme objects remains a fascinating and open issue. Such discovery implies that…