Related papers: Observing the First Stars and Black Holes
On July 13, 2022, NASA released to the whole world the data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Early Release Observations (ERO). These are the first set of science-grade data from this long-awaited facility, marking the…
Blind spectroscopy of massive lensing galaxy clusters with MUSE has revealed large numbers of gravitationally-lensed Lyman-$ \alpha $ emitters exhibiting asymmetric profiles at $ 2.9 \leq z \leq 6.7 $, suggesting abundant outflows from…
Blazars are Active Galactic Nuclei characterized by relativistic jets launched in the vicinity of the central engine (i.e. a supermassive black hole), that are oriented close to our line of sight. Their peculiar orientation makes them very…
The first billion years of the Universe is a pivotal time: stars, black holes (BHs) and galaxies form and assemble, sowing the seeds of galaxies as we know them today. Detecting, identifying and understand- ing the first galaxies and BHs is…
The stellar mass assembly of massive galaxies in the first few billion years of cosmic history remains a central challenge in galaxy formation. Galaxies with $M_\star \gtrsim 10^{10}M_\odot$ observed at $z \gtrsim 4$ must grow rapidly under…
Finding and characterising the first galaxies that illuminated the early Universe at cosmic dawn is pivotal to understand the physical conditions and the processes that led to the formation of the first stars. In the first few months of…
Massive stars at cosmological distances can be individually detected during transient microlensing events, when gravitational lensing magnifications may exceed ~1000. Nine such sources were identified in JWST NIRCam imaging of a single…
We report results from numerical simulations of star formation in the early universe that focus on gas at very high densities and very low metallicities. We argue that the gas in the central regions of protogalactic halos will fragment as…
The discovery of luminous quasars at redshifts up to 7.5 demonstrates the existence of several billion M_sun supermassive black holes (SMBHs) less than a billion years after the Big Bang. They are accompanied by intense star formation in…
We present synthetic observations for the first generations of galaxies in the Universe and make predictions for future deep field observations for redshifts greater than 6. Due to the strong impact of nebular emission lines and the…
Combining the public JWST/NIRCam imaging programs CEERS, PRIMER and JADES, spanning a total area of $\sim500\,{\rm arcmin}^2$, we obtain a sample of $>$30,000 galaxies at $z_{\rm phot}\sim4-9$ that allows us to perform a complete,…
Galaxies grow their supermassive black holes in concert with their stars, although the relationship between these major galactic components is poorly understood. Observations of the cosmic growth of stars and black holes in galaxies suffer…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has begun to revolutionize our view of the Cosmos. The discovery of Blue Monsters (i.e., ultra-compact yet very bright high-z galaxies) and the Little Red Dots (i.e., very compact dustless strong Balmer…
The presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at high redshifts ($z>5$), as revealed by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), challenges standard black hole (BH) formation scenarios. We propose a mechanism in which non-annihilating dark…
Through a combination of deep wide-field imaging and multi-object spectroscopy, the Next Generation Space Telescope will be able to chart with unprecedented accuracy the evolution of cosmic structures after the `dark ages' (z<5), when…
The James Webb Space Telescope has detected surprisingly luminous early galaxies that indicate a tension with the $\Lambda$CDM. Motivated by scenarios including axion miniclusters or primordial black holes, we consider power-law…
The first few cycles of JWST have identified an overabundance of UV-bright galaxies and a general excess of UV luminosity density at $z\gtrsim10$ compared to expectations from most (pre-JWST) theoretical models. Moreover, some of the…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected, through gravitational lensing, several young massive star clusters (YMCs), which are considered as relevant building blocks of high redshift galaxies. In this work, we show how a…
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 identification and study of the first galaxies remains one of the most exciting topics in observational cosmology. The determination of the best possible observing strategies is a very important choice in order to build up a…