Related papers: The Frontier of Reionization: Theory and Forthcomi…
We simulate a plausible cosmological model in considerable physical and numerical detail through the successive phases of reheating (at 10<z<20), formation of Pop III stars at z=15 (due to molecular hydrogen cooling), with subsequent…
Low-frequency radio observations of neutral hydrogen during and before the epoch of cosmic reionization will provide ~ 1000 quasi-independent source planes, each of precisely known redshift, if a resolution of ~1 arcminutes or better can be…
The first sources of ionizing radiation to condense out of the dark and neutral IGM sent ionization fronts sweeping outward through their surroundings, overtaking other condensed objects and photoevaporating them. This feedback of universal…
The epoch of reionization is one of the least known chapters in the evolutionary history of the Universe. This thesis investigates two major approaches to unveil the reionization history of the Universe using HI 21-cm maps.The most…
21cm emission from residual neutral hydrogen after the epoch of reionization can be used to trace the cosmological power spectrum of density fluctuations. Using a Fisher matrix formulation, we provide a detailed forecast of the constraints…
I review recent progress and challenges in studies of the earliest galaxies, seen when the Universe was less than 1 billion years old. Can they be used as reliable tracers of the physics of cosmic reionization thereby complementing other,…
The high ionization level and universal metallicity (1% solar) of the intergalactic gas at redshifts z<5 implies that nonlinear structure had started to form in the universe at earlier times than we currently probe. In Cold Dark Matter…
Understanding the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies represents one of the most exciting frontiers in astronomy. Since the universe was filled with neutral hydrogen at early times, the most promising method for…
The first generation of redshifted 21 cm detection experiments, carried out with arrays like LOFAR, MWA and GMRT, will have a very low signal-to-noise ratio per resolution element (\sim 0.2). In addition, whereas the variance of the…
In popular cold dark matter cosmological scenarios, stars may have first appeared in significant numbers around a redshift of 10 or so, as the gas within protogalactic halos with virial temperatures in excess of 20,000 K (corresponding to…
Galaxies had their most significant impact on the Universe when they assembled their first generations of stars. Energetic photons emitted by young, massive stars in primeval galaxies ionized the intergalactic medium surrounding their host…
The contribution of stars in galaxies to cosmic reionisation depends on the star formation history in the Universe, the abundance of galaxies during reionisation, the escape fraction of ionising photons and the clumping factor of the…
Early reionization changes the pattern of anisotropies expected in the cosmic microwave background. To explore these changes, we derive from first principles the equations governing anisotropies, focusing on the interactions of photons with…
Cosmic background radiation, both diffuse and discrete in nature, produced at different cosmic epochs before and after recombination, provides key information on the evolution of cosmic structures. We discuss the main classes of sources…
The "cosmic dawn" refers to the period of the Universe's history when stars and black holes first formed and began heating and ionizing hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Though exceedingly difficult to detect directly, the first…
Observations of the cosmic microwave background represent a remarkable source of information for modern cosmology. Besides providing impressive support for the Big Bang model itself, they quantify the overall framework, or background, for…
The formation of the first stars and quasars marks the transition between the smooth initial state and the clumpy current state of the Universe. In popular CDM cosmologies, the first sources of light started to form at a redshift z=30 and…
I describe briefly the Cosmic Microwave Background (hereafter CMB) physics which explains why high accuracy observations of its spatial structure are a unique observational tool both for the determination of the global cosmological…
Cosmic reionization marks a critical epoch when the first galaxies ionized the intergalactic medium through the escape of Lyman continuum (LyC) radiation. Young, massive star clusters are believed to be the primary LyC sources, yet the…
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…