Related papers: Star Formation for Predictive Primordial Galaxy Fo…
Understanding the formation of the first stars is one of the frontier topics in modern astrophysics and cosmology. Their emergence signaled the end of the cosmic dark ages, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, leading to a…
The properties of the first galaxies are shaped in large part by the first generations of stars, which emit high energy radiation and unleash both large amounts of mechanical energy and the first heavy elements when they explode as…
Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution. Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of…
The earliest generation of stars, far from being a mere novelty, transformed the universe from darkness to light. The first atoms to form after the Big Bang filled the universe with atomic hydrogen and a few light elements. As gravity…
Observations made using large ground-based and space-borne telescopes have probed cosmic history all the way from the present-day to a time when the Universe was less than a tenth of its present age. Earlier on lies the remaining frontier,…
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 nature of the first generation of stars in the Universe remains largely unknown. Observations imply the existence of massive primordial stars early in the history of the universe, and the standard theory for the growth of cosmic…
In these lecture notes we review the current knowledge about the formation of the first luminous objects. We start from the cosmological context of hierarchical models of structure formation, and discuss the main physical processes which…
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…
How and when did the first generation of stars form at the end of the cosmic dark ages? Quite generically, within variants of the cold dark matter model of cosmological structure formation, the first sources of light are expected to form in…
The first dwarf galaxies, which constitute the building blocks of the collapsed objects we find today in the Universe, had formed hundreds of millions of years after the big bang. This pedagogical review describes the early growth of their…
We review recent theoretical results on the formation of the first stars in the universe, and emphasize related open questions. In particular, we discuss the initial conditions for Population III star formation, as given by variants of the…
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…
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…
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…
The first generation of stars was formed from primordial gas. Numerical simulations suggest that the first stars were predominantly very massive, with typical masses M > 100 Mo. These stars were responsible for the reionization of the…
Cosmic structure originated from minute density perturbations in an almost homogeneous universe. The first stars are believed to be very massive and luminous, providing the first ionizing radiation and heavy elements to the universe and…
In this review, I survey our current understanding of how the very first stars in the universe formed, with a focus on three main areas of interest: the formation of the first protogalaxies and the cooling of gas within them, the nature and…
From studying the cosmic microwave background, we know our Universe started out very simple. It was by and large homogeneous and isotropic, with small fluctuations that can be described by linear perturbation theory. In stark contrast, the…
The presence of ultra-high energy cosmic rays in the universe in the pre-ionization epoch enhances significantly H$_2$ kinetics in virialized halos. It results in more efficient radiative cooling and decreases the lower mass limit of the…