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The first stars in the universe ionized the ambient primordial gas through various feedback processes. "Second-generation" primordial stars potentially form from this disturbed gas after its recombination. In this Letter, we study the late…
In massive primordial galaxies, the gas may directly collapse and form a single central massive object if cooling is suppressed. Line cooling by molecular hydrogen can be suppressed in the presence of a strong soft-ultraviolet radiation…
Supermassive primordial stars forming in atomically-cooled halos at $z \sim15-20$ are currently thought to be the progenitors of the earliest quasars in the Universe. In this picture, the star evolves under accretion rates of $0.1 - 1$…
We investigate the evolution of the primordial gas surrounding the first massive black holes formed by the collapse of Population III stars at redshifts z > 20. Carrying out three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations using GADGET, we…
Halos with masses in excess of the atomic limit are believed to be ideal environments in which to form heavy black hole seeds with masses above 10^3 Msun. In cases where the H_2 fraction is suppressed this is expected to lead to reduced…
We develop equations and obtain solutions for the structure and evolution of a protodisc region that is initially formed with no radial motion and super-Keplerian rotation speed when wind material from a hot rotating star is channelled…
The connection between dense gas cores and their infant protostars is key to understanding how stars form in molecular clouds. In this paper we investigate the properties, persistence, and protostellar content of cores that would be…
Many questions in physical cosmology regarding the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, chemical enrichment, reionization, etc. are thought to be intimately related to the nature and evolution of pregalactic structure. In particular…
The mass of prestellar cores is an essential ingredient to understand the onset of star formation in the core. The low level of emission from cold dust may keep parts of it hidden from observation. We aim to determine the fraction of core…
Star formation occurs within dense regions of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), however, exactly how gas collects and evolves to form individual stars and what role dense cores play remains unclear. We use the Lagrangian cell information in…
The molecular gas content of local early-type galaxies is constrained and discussed in relation to their evolution. First, as part of the Atlas3D survey, we present the first complete, large (260 objects), volume-limited single-dish survey…
The question whether or not the initial mass function is universal, i.e. the same in all kinds of environments, is of critical importance for the theory of star formation and still intensely debated. A top-heavy initial mass function may be…
We revisit previous suggestions that the heating provided by the winds of dying low-mass stars plays an important role in preventing star formation in quiescent galaxies. At the end of their asymptotic giant branch phase, intermediate and…
The collapse of supermassive primordial stars in hot, atomically-cooled halos may have given birth to the first quasars at $z \sim$ 15 - 20. Recent numerical simulations of these rapidly accreting stars reveal that they are cool, red…
I review recent progress in understanding the formation of the first stars and quasars. The initial conditions for their emergence are given by the now firmly established model of cosmological structure formation. Numerical simulations of…
Population III (or Pop. III) stars, the first stellar generation built up from metal-free primordial gas, first started to form at redshifts z ~ 30. They formed primarily in small dark matter halos with masses of a few million solar masses.…
Using a recently-developed technique to estimate gas temperatures ($T_\textrm{SF}$) in star-forming regions from large photometric surveys, we propose a diagram, analogous to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram for individual stars, to probe…
We use a spherical hydrodynamics code to show that in cold dark matter cosmologies, the first stars form at z=50 through the direct collapse of gas in low-mass systems (approx 10^4 solar masses). Photons from the first stars easily…
We investigate the impact of different initial conditions for the initial density profile and the initial turbulence on the formation process of protostellar clusters. We study the collapse of dense molecula r cloud cores with…
We investigate the formation of protostellar clusters during the collapse of dense molecular cloud cores with a focus on the evolution of potential and kinetic energy, the degree of substructure, and the early phase of mass segregation. Our…