Related papers: Dark stars: structure, evolution and impacts upon …
(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…
If Dark Matter (DM) is composed by Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, its annihilation in the halos harboring the earliest star formation episode may strongly influence the first generation of stars (Population III). Whereas DM…
Rotation has a number of important effects on the evolution of stars. Apart from structural changes because of the centrifugal force, turbulent mixing and meridional circulation caused by rotation can dramatically affect a star's chemical…
If the cosmological dark matter has a component made of small primordial black holes, they may have a significant impact on the physics of the first stars and on the subsequent formation of massive black holes. Primordial black holes would…
We study evolution of dark matter substructures, especially how they lose the mass and change density profile after they fall in gravitational potential of larger host halos. We develop an analytical prescription that models the subhalo…
Recent theoretical studies have revealed the possibly important role of the capture and annihilation process of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) for the first stars. Using new evolutionary models of metal-free massive stars, we…
Helioseismology can be used to place new constraints on the properties of dark matter, allowing solar observations to complement more conventional dark matter searches currently in operation. During the course of its lifetime, the Sun…
Mass is constantly being recycled in the universe. One of the most powerful recycling paths is via stellar mass-loss. All stars exhibit mass loss with rates ranging from ~10(-14) to 10(-4) M(sun) yr-1, depending on spectral type, luminosity…
We study the effects of WIMP dark matter (DM) annihilations on the thermal and chemical evolution of the gaseous clouds where the first generation of stars in the Universe is formed. We follow the collapse of the gas inside a typical halo…
Evolved stars dominate galactic spectra, enrich the galactic medium, expand to change their planetary systems, eject winds of a complex nature, produce spectacular nebulae and illuminate them, and transfer material between binary…
The first stars are believed to have formed a few hundred million years after the big bang in so-called dark matter minihalos with masses ~10^6 M_sun. Their radiation lit up the Universe for the first time, and the supernova explosions that…
The discovery of nongravitational interactions between dark matter and the Standard Model would be an important step in unraveling the nature of dark matter. If such an interaction exists, it would have profound implications on how dark…
The thermal and expansion history of the Universe before big bang nucleosynthesis is unknown. We investigate the evolution of cosmological perturbations through the transition from an early matter era to radiation domination. We treat…
Although dark matter makes up 80% of the gravitational mass of our Galaxy, its composition is not known. One hypothesis is that dark matter consists of massive particles called WIMPs. WIMPs are expected to accumulate and coannihilate in 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…
Neutron stars offer powerful astrophysical laboratories to probe the properties of dark matter. Gradual accumulation of heavy, non-annihilating dark matter in neutron stars can lead to the formation of comparable-mass black holes, and…
The cosmic reionization era, which includes formation of the first stars, galaxies, and AGN, is now one of the most active frontiers of cosmological research. We review briefly our current understanding of the early structure formation, and…
There are significant discrepancies between observational evidence and the hierarchical galaxy formation theory with respect to the shape of dark matter halos, the correlation between galaxy characteristics, and galaxy evolutionary history.…
The impact of new stellar evolution models with rotation on the predictions of population synthesis models is discussed. Massive rotating stars have larger convective cores than their non-rotating counterparts, and their outer layers are…
The cosmological evolution can modify the dark matter (DM) properties in the early Universe to be vastly different from the properties today. Therefore, the relation between the relic abundance and the DM constraints today needs to be…