Related papers: The First Stars
The deepest space and ground-based observations find metal-enriched galaxies at cosmic times when the Universe was <1 Gyr old. These stellar populations had to be preceded by the metal-free first stars, Population III. Recent cosmic…
Metals from Population III (Pop III) supernovae led to the formation of less massive Pop II stars in the early universe, altering the course of evolution of primeval galaxies and cosmological reionization. There are a variety of scenarios…
The first stars in the Universe are predicted to have been much more massive than the Sun. Gravitational condensation accompanied by cooling of the primordial gas due to molecular hydrogen, yields a minimum fragmentation scale of a few…
We use cosmological simulations of high-redshift minihalos to investigate the effect of dark matter annihilation (DMA) on the collapse of primordial gas. We numerically investigate the evolution of the gas as it assembles in a Population…
The process of star formation from metal-free gas is investigated by following the evolution of accreting protostars with emphasis on the properties of massive objects. The main aim is to establish the physical processes that determine the…
The first Pop III stars formed out of primordial, metal free gas, in minihalos at z>20, and kickstarted the cosmic processes of reionizaton and enrichment. While these stars are likely more massive than their enriched counterparts, the…
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 review our current understanding of how the first galaxies formed at the end of the cosmic dark ages, a few 100 million years after the Big Bang. Modern large telescopes discovered galaxies at redshifts greater than seven, whereas…
The first stars fundamentally transformed the early universe by emitting the first light and by producing the first heavy elements. These effects were predetermined by the mass distribution of the first stars, which is thought to have been…
The first stars are assumed to be predominantly massive. Although, due to the low initial abundances of heavy elements the line-driven stellar winds are supposed to be inefficient in the first stars, these stars may loose a significant…
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…
We model gas cooling in high-resolution N-body simulations in order to investigate the formation of the first generation of stars. We follow a region of a LCDM universe especially selected to contain a rich cluster by the present day. The…
Nearby galaxies are the end result of their cosmological evolution, which is predicted to be influenced by the growth of their host dark matter halos. This co-evolution potentially leaves signatures in present-day observed galaxy…
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 recent detection of the sky-averaged 21-cm cosmological signal indicates a stronger absorption than the maximum allowed value based on the standard model. One explanation for the required colder primordial gas is the energy transfer…
In reionized regions of the Universe, gas can only collapse to form stars in dark matter (DM) haloes which grow to be sufficiently massive. If star formation is prevented in the minihalo progenitors of such DM haloes at redshifts z >~ 20,…
The formation of the first stars (Population III; PopIII) marks the end of the dark ages of the universe, a subject of lively scientific debate. Not (yet) accessible to direct observations, this early stage of the universe is mostly studied…
From the time the first stars formed over 13 billion years ago to the present, star formation has had an unexpectedly dynamic history. At first, the star formation rate density increased dramatically, reaching a peak 10 billion years ago…
The chemistry of the early Universe is a fascinating field of study. Even in the absence of any elements heavier than lithium, a surprising degree of chemical complexity proves to be possible, giving the topic considerable interest in its…
The formation of the first stars out of metal-free gas appears to result in stars at least an order of magnitude more massive than in the present-day case. We here consider what controls the transition from a primordial to a modern initial…