Related papers: The Formation of the First Galaxies
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and the James Webb Space Telescope are transforming our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution in the early Universe. By combining their capabilities, these observatories provide…
Paramount among the processes that ended the cosmic `dark ages' must have been the formation of the first generation of stars (the so-called Population III). We summarize recent progress in constraining its nature, and we discuss the basic…
The formation of the first stars is an exciting frontier area in astronomy. Early redshifts z ~ 20 have become observationally promising as a result of a recently recognized effect of a supersonic relative velocity between the dark matter…
(Abridged) In these lectures aimed for non-specialists, I review progress in understanding how galaxies form and evolve. Both the star formation history and assembly of stellar mass can be empirically traced from redshifts z~6 to the…
Recent studies suggest that the initial mass function (IMF) of the first stars was likely to be extremely top-heavy, unlike what is observed at present. We propose a scenario to generate fragmentation to lower masses once the first massive…
Recent cosmological hydrodynamic simulations have suggested that the first stars in the universe often form as binary or multiple systems. However, previous studies typically overlooked the potential influence of magnetic fields during this…
The first bound star-forming systems in the universe are predicted to form at redshifts of about 30 and to have masses of the order of 10^6 M_sun. Although their sizes and masses are similar to those of present star-forming regions, their…
The new Pop III models by Schaerer (2002) have been used to derive the observed properties of the first galaxies in terms of the expected magnitudes and colors. The dependence of their properties on the IMF and upper mass limit for star…
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…
We argue that the first stars may have spanned the conventional mass range rather than be identified with the Very Massive Objects (100-1000 solar masses) favoured by numerical simulations. Specifically, we find that magnetic field…
Identifying stars formed in pristine environments (Pop III) within the first billion years is vital to uncovering the earliest growth and chemical evolution of galaxies. Pop III galaxies, however, are typically expected to be too faint and…
All measurements of cosmic star formation must assume an initial distribution of stellar masses -- the stellar initial mass function -- in order to extrapolate from the star-formation rate measured for typically rare, massive stars (> 8…
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and may be launched as early as mid-2011. The key scientific goals for JWST are discovering and understanding the formation of the first…
The bulk of the present-day stellar mass was formed in galaxies when the universe was less than half its current age (i.e., $1 \lesssim z \lesssim 3$). While this likely marks one of the most critical time periods for galaxy evolution, we…
We investigate the formation of metal-free, Population III (Pop III), stars within a minihalo at z ~ 20 with a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation, starting from cosmological initial conditions. Employing a hierarchical,…
(abridged) We use large cosmological simulations to study the origin of primordial star-forming clouds in a Lambda CDM universe, by following the formation of dark matter halos and the cooling of gas within them. To model the physics of…
This two-part review summarizes interstellar turbulence and its implications. The first part begins with diagnostics and energy sources. Turbulence theory is considered in detail, including the basic fluid equations, solenoidal and…
We summarize cm through submm observations of the host galaxies of z ~ 6 quasars. These observations reveal the cool molecular gas (the fuel for star formation), the warm dust (heated by star formation), the fine structure line emission…
This paper presents a review of the topic of galaxy formation and evolution, focusing on basic features of galaxies, and how these observables reveal how galaxies and their stars assemble over cosmic time. I give an overview of the observed…
Galaxies represent the visible fabric of the Universe and there has been considerable progress recently in both observational and theoretical studies. The underlying goal is to understand the present-day diversity of galaxy forms, masses…