Related papers: From Gas to Stars Over Cosmic Time
The cosmic star formation rate density first increases with time towards a pronounced peak 10 Gyrs ago (or z=1-2) and then slows down, dropping by more than a factor 10 since z=1. The processes at the origin of the star formation quenching…
The determination of the star-formation history of the Universe is a key goal of modern cosmology, as it is crucial to our understanding of how structure in the Universe forms and evolves. A picture has built up over recent years,…
Large telescopes have allowed astronomers to observe galaxies that formed as early as 850 million years after the Big Bang. We predict when the first star that astronomers can observe formed in the universe, accounting for the first time…
Over the past two decades, an avalanche of data from multiwavelength imaging and spectroscopic surveys has revolutionized our view of galaxy formation and evolution. Here we review the range of complementary techniques and theoretical tools…
How stars are born from clouds of gas is a rich physics problem whose solution will inform our understanding of not just stars but also planets, galaxies, and the universe itself. Star formation is stupendously inefficient. Take the Milky…
Young galaxies are clumpy, gas-rich, and highly turbulent. Star formation appears to occur by gravitational instabilities in galactic disks. The high dispersion makes the clumps massive and the disks thick. The star formation rate should be…
The formation of stars from gas drives the evolution of galaxies. Yet, it remains one of the hardest processes to understand when trying to connect observations of stellar and galaxy populations to models of large scale structure formation.…
The formation of the first generations of stars at redshifts z > 15-20 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the universe to one of increasing complexity. We here review recent progress in understanding the assembly…
The concept that stars form in the modern era began some 60 years ago with the key observation of expanding OB associations. Now we see that these associations are an intermediate scale in a cascade of hierarchical structures that begins on…
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…
Using a compilation of measurements of the stellar mass density as a function of redshift we can infer the cosmic star formation history. For z < 0.7 there is good agreement between the two star formation histories. At higher redshifts the…
The first generation of stars, often called Population III (or Pop III), form from metal-free primordial gas at redshifts 30 and below. They dominate the cosmic star formation history until redshifts 15 to 20, at which point the formation…
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…
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.…
Over the past decade increasingly robust estimates of the dense molecular gas content in galaxy populations between redshift 0 and the peak of cosmic galaxy/star formation from redshift 1-3 have become available. This rapid progress has…
The star formation history derived from ultraviolet and H$\alpha$ data, without correction for dust extinction, on the one hand, and from far infrared and submillimetre data, on the other, is investigated. The latter estimates are found to…
Star forming galaxies represent a valuable tracer of cosmic history. Recent observational progress with Hubble Space Telescope has led to the discovery and study of the earliest-known galaxies corresponding to a period when the Universe was…
To understand the formation of stellar groups, one must first document carefully the birth pattern within real clusters and associations. In this study of Taurus-Auriga, we combine pre-main-sequence ages from our own evolutionary tracks…
How and when did galaxies form and assemble their stars and stellar mass? The answer to these questions, so crucial to astrophysics and cosmology, requires the full reconstruction of the so called cosmic star formation rate density (SFRD),…
We describe how star formation is expected to proceed in the early metal-free Universe, focusing on the very first generations of stars. We then discuss how the star formation process may change as the effects of metallicity, external…