Related papers: First Light: A Brief Review
Observing the first generation of Population III (Pop III) stars is one of the most demanding challenges in astronomy. Indeed, Pop III stars are expected to predominantly form within faint minihalos at early times with a top-heavy initial…
In hierarchical models of structure formation, the first galaxies form in low-mass dark matter potential wells, probing the behavior of dark matter on kiloparsec (kpc) scales. Even though these objects are below the detection threshold of…
We review some of the possible observable effects (reionization, feedback on galaxy formation, supernovae and metal enrichment) of the first collapsed, luminous (Pop III) objects in the universe. We show that supernovae in these objects…
Galactic stellar halos have long been considered to contain fossil information on early dynamical and chemical evolution of galaxies. We propose that the surface brightness distributions of old stellar halos contain the influence of…
We utilize cosmological hydrodynamic simulations to study the formation of Population III (Pop III) stars in dark matter halos exposed to strong ionizing radiation. We simulate the formation of three halos subjected to a wide range of…
The first generation of stars were born a few hundred million years after the big bang. These stars synthesized elements heavier than H and He, that are later expelled into the interstellar medium, initiating the rise of metals. Within this…
The epoch of reionization and formation of first stars are inter-linked topics that are of considerable interest. We use a simplified approach for studying formation of stars in collapsed haloes, and the resulting ionization of the…
The cosmic microwave background and the cosmic expansion can be interpreted as evidence that the Universe underwent an extremely hot and dense phase about 14 Gyr ago. The nucleosynthesis computations tell us that the Universe emerged from…
We present a theoretical model for primordial star formation. First we describe the structure of the initial gas cores as virialized, quasi-hydrostatic objects in accord with recent high resolution numerical studies. The accretion rate can…
Recently, it has been observed the extreme metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo, which must be formed just after Pop III objects. On the other hand, the first gas clouds of mass $\sim 10^6 M_{\odot}$ are supposed to be formed at $ z \sim $…
We show the universe was reionized twice, first at z~15-16 and second at z~6. Such an outcome appears inevitable, when normalizing to two well determined observational measurements, namely, the epoch of the final cosmological reionization…
The formation of Population III (Pop III) stars is a critical step in the evolution of the early universe. To understand how these stars affected their metal-enriched descendants, the details of how, why and where Pop III formation takes…
We report results from numerical simulations of star formation in the early universe that focus on the dynamical behavior of metal-free gas under different initial and environmental conditions. In particular we investigate the role of…
We include an energy term based on Dark Matter (DM) self-annihilation during the cooling and subsequent collapse of the metal-free gas, in halos hosting the formation of the first stars in the Universe. We have found that the feedback…
Current simulations indicate that the first stars were formed predominantly in binary systems. The study of the contribution of the first accreting binary systems to the reionization and heating of the intergalactic medium requires the…
The rest-frame UV emission from massive stars contains a wealth of information about the physical nature and conditions of star formation in galaxies. Using studies of the rest-frame UV, the past decade has witnessed the beginning of…
The first stars fundamentally transformed the early Universe through their production of energetic radiation and the first heavy chemical elements. The impact on cosmic evolution sensitively depends on their initial mass function (IMF),…
Near-infrared surveys have now determined the luminosity functions of galaxies at 6<z<9 to impressive precision and identified a number of candidates at even earlier times. Here we develop a simple analytic model to describe these…
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…
The emergence of the first sources of light at redshifts of z ~ 10-30 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the Universe to one of increasing complexity. We review recent progress in our understanding of the formation of…