Related papers: First Light: A Brief Review
The basic processes of the formation of the first stars in the primordial Universe are outlined and the implications for cosmological structure formation discussed. By employing theoretical and numerical models of cosmic structure evolution…
Dark matter (DM) in protostellar halos can dramatically alter the current theoretical framework for the formation of the first stars. Heat from supersymmetric DM annihilation can overwhelm any cooling mechanism, consequently impeding the…
We study the baryonic, chemical and dynamical properties of a significantly large sample of early proto-galaxies in the first 500 Myr of the Universe (redshift z>9), obtained from high-resolution numerical, N-body, hydrodynamical, chemistry…
Recent simulations of Population III star formation have suggested that some fraction form in binary systems, in addition to having a characteristic mass of tens of solar masses. The deaths of metal-free stars result in the initial chemical…
Investigating the properties of the first stars in the universe is essential, yet it remains an open question. One way to explore these stars is by examining their effects on the surrounding gas during the epoch of reionization. In this…
The WMAP satellite has measured a large optical depth to electron scattering after cosmological recombination of 0.17+-0.04, implying significant reionization of the primordial gas only ~200 million years after the big bang. However, the…
When, and how, did the first galaxies and supermassive black holes (SMBH) form, and how did they reionization the Universe? First galaxy formation and cosmic reionization are among the last frontiers in studies of cosmic structure…
The first luminous objects forming in the universe produce radiation backgrounds in the FUV and X-ray bands that affect the formation of Population III stars. Using a grid of cosmological hydrodynamics zoom-in simulations, we explore the…
In two previous papers, we presented simulations of the first galaxies in a representative volume of the Universe. The simulations are unique because we model feedback-regulated galaxy formation, using time-dependent,…
Using radiation-hydrodynamic cosmological simulations, we present a detailed ($0.1$ pc resolution), physically motivated portrait of a typical-mass dwarf galaxy before the epoch of reionization, resolving the formation and evolution of star…
The first stars, the chemically pristine Population III, likely played an important role in heating the intergalactic medium during the epoch of cosmic dawn. The very high effective temperatures ($\sim 10^5$ K) predicted for the most…
We study the evolution of the first stars in the universe (Population III) from the early pre-Main Sequence until the end of helium burning in the presence of WIMP dark matter annihilation inside the stellar structure. The two different…
Cosmological hydrodynamic simulations have significantly improved over the past several years, and we have already shown that the observed properties of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) at z=3 can be explained well by the massive galaxies in the…
We have proposed that the first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the Universe may be Dark Stars (DS), powered by dark matter heating rather than by nuclear fusion. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, which may be their own…
Understanding the formation of the first stars and galaxies is a key problem in modern cosmology. In these lecture notes, we will derive some of the basic physical principles underlying this emerging field. We will consider the basic…
The history of the transition from a neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) to one that is almost fully ionized can reveal the character of cosmological ionizing sources and set important constraints on the stellar birthrate at high redshifts.…
The formation of the first galaxies at redshifts z ~ 10-15 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the universe to one of ever increasing complexity. We here review recent progress in understanding their assembly process…
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…
Population III stars are believed to have been more massive than typical stars today and to have formed in relative isolation. The thermodynamic impact of metals is expected to induce a transition leading to clustered, low-mass Population…
Population III star formation during the dark ages shifted from minihalos (~10^6 Msun) cooled via molecular hydrogen to more massive halos (~10^8 Msun) cooled via Ly-alpha as Lyman-Werner backgrounds progressively quenched molecular…