Related papers: Observational Searches for Galaxies at z > 6
I endeavour to provide a thorough overview of our current knowledge of high-redshift galaxies and their evolution during the first billion years of cosmic time, corresponding to redshifts z > 5. After first summarizing progress with the…
I review selected current observations of distant galaxies and our interpretation of the fragile (and occasionally contradictory) data. Galaxies at the ``contemporary limit'' of technology and redshift (z~6) are difficult to locate in the…
How and when do galaxies form? Studies of the microwave background radiation reveal that the Universe is spectacularly homogenous at redshift z~1000. Observations of the local Universe reveal that by z=0 much of the luminous matter has…
We present recent progress in searching for galaxies at redshift from z = 5 to z = 10. Wide-field and senstive surveys with 8m class telescopes have been providing more than several hundreds of star forming galaxies at z =5 - 7 that are…
To understand the evolution of galaxies, we need to know as accurately as possible how many galaxies were present in the Universe at different epochs. Galaxies in the young Universe have hitherto mainly been identified using their expected…
Observing the first galaxies formed during the reionisation epoch, i.e. approximately within the first billion years after the Big Bang, remains one of the challenges of contemporary astrophysics. Several efforts are being undertaken to…
The epoch of galaxy assembly from 2<=z<=4 marks a critical stage during the evolution of today's galaxy population. During this period the star-formation activity in the Universe was at its peak level, and the structural patterns observed…
(Abridged) In these lectures aimed for non-specialists, I review progress in understanding how galaxies form and evolve. Both the star formation history and assembly of stellar mass can be empirically traced from redshifts z~6 to the…
Few galaxies have been found between the redshift ranges z < ~1 probed by magnitude-limited surveys and z > ~3 probed by Lyman-break surveys. Comparison of galaxy samples at lower and higher redshift suggests that large numbers of stars…
During the first 500 million years of cosmic history, the first stars and galaxies formed, seeding the Universe with heavy elements and eventually reionizing the intergalactic medium. Observations with JWST have uncovered a surprisingly…
The existence of massive ($10^{11}$ solar masses) elliptical galaxies by redshift z~4 (when the Universe was 1.5 billion years old) necessitates the presence of galaxies with star-formation rates exceeding 100 solar masses per year at z>6…
Galaxies undergoing formation and evolution can now be observed over a time baseline of some 12 Gyr. An inherent difficulty with high-redshift observations is that the objects are very faint and the best resolution (HST) is only ~0.5 kpc.…
In the early Universe finding massive galaxies that have stopped forming stars present an observational challenge as their rest-frame ultraviolet emission is negligible and they can only be reliably identified by extremely deep…
Connecting galaxies with their descendants (or progenitors) at different redshifts can yield strong constraints on galaxy evolution. Observational studies have historically selected samples of galaxies using a physical quantity, such as…
In the past decade, our understanding of galaxy evolution has been revolutionized by the discovery that luminous, dusty, starburst galaxies were 1,000 times more abundant in the early Universe than at present. It has, however, been…
The first 900 million years (Myr) to redshift z~6 (the first seven per cent of the age of the Universe) remains largely unexplored for the formation of galaxies. Large samples of galaxies have been found at z~6, but detections at earlier…
The quest to discover the most distant galaxies has developed rapidly in the last decade. We are now exploring redshifts of 6 and beyond, when the Universe was less than a billion years old, an epoch when the previously-neutral…
Analysis of the deepest available images of the sky, obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals a large number of candidate high-redshift galaxies. A catalogue of 1,683 objects is presented, with estimated redshifts ranging from $z=0$…
I discuss recent theoretical work on the formation and evolution of galaxies paying particular attention to the ability of current models to make detailed comparisons with observations of the galaxy population both nearby and at high…
When galaxy formation started in the history of the Universe remains unclear. Studies of the cosmic microwave background indicate that the Universe, after initial cooling (following the Big Bang), was reheated and reionized by hot stars in…