Related papers: Beasts in Lambda-CDM Zoo
The standard cosmological model, now strongly constrained by direct observation at early epochs, is very successful in describing the structure of the evolved universe on large and intermediate scales. Unfortunately, serious contradictions…
The results of a new spectroscopic survey of 66 $z \simgt 4$ quasars for Damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems are presented. The search led to the discovery of 30 new DLA candidates which are analysed in order to compute the comoving mass…
The earliest JWST observations have revealed an unexpected abundance of super-early ($z>10$), massive ($M_*\approx 10^9\, M_\odot$) galaxies at the bright-end ($M_{\rm UV}\approx -21$) of the ultraviolet luminosity function (UV LF). We…
Infrared observations of high-z quasar (QSO) hosts indicate the presence of large masses of dust in the early universe. When combined with other observables, such as neutral gas masses and star formation rates, the dust content of z~6 QSO…
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…
The Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) paradigm makes specific predictions for the abundance, structure, substructure and clustering of dark matter halos, the sites of galaxy formation. These predictions can be directly tested, in the low-mass…
Large amounts of dust have recently been discovered in high-z galaxies and QSOs. The stellar winds produced by AGB stars are thought to be the main source of dust in galaxies, but they cannot produce that dust on a short enough timescale…
A significant fraction of the energy emitted in the early Universe came from very luminous galaxies that are largely hidden at optical wavelengths (because of interstellar dust grains); this energy now forms part of the cosmic background…
Bright high-redshift quasars ($z>6$), hosting supermassive black holes ($\rm M_{BH} > 10^8 M_{\odot}$), are expected to reside in massive host galaxies embedded within some of the earliest and most massive galaxy overdensities. We analyze…
Observational constraints on the birth and early evolution of massive black holes (BHs) come from two extreme regimes. At high redshift, quasars signal the rapid growth of billion-solar-mass BHs and indicate that these objects began…
Quasars are the earliest objects known to exist. We examine their origin in the context of popular models for structure formation in the universe. We show that seeds for quasar black holes could have originated from the initial cosmological…
Many galaxies contain supermassive black holes (SMBHs), whose formation and history raise many puzzles. Pulsar timing arrays have recently discovered a low-frequency cosmological "hum" of gravitational waves that may be emitted by SMBH…
Nearly 300 quasars have now been found at $z >$ 6, including nine at $z >$ 7. They are thought to form from the collapse of supermassive primordial stars to 10$^4$ - 10$^5$ M$_{\odot}$ black holes at $z \sim$ 20 - 25, which then rapidly…
Observations now probe the star formation history of the Universe back to a redshift of $z\sim5$. We investigate whether the predictions of semi-analytic models of galaxy formation based on hierarchical Cold Dark Matter (CDM) type models…
Early JWST observations have revealed a high-redshift universe more vibrant than predicted by canonical galaxy-formation models within $\Lambda$CDM, showing an excess of ultraviolet(UV)-bright, massive, and morphologically mature galaxies.…
I summarize current knowledge of galaxy formation with emphasis on the initial conditions provided by the Lambda CDM cosmology, integral constraints from cosmological quantities, and the demographics of high-redshift protogalaxies. Tables…
Black holes, an extreme consequence of the mathematics of General Relativity, have long been suspected of being the prime movers of quasars, which emit more energy than any other objects in the Universe. Recent evidence indicates that…
A new model for the formation of active galaxies is described. A key feature of this model is the idea that the birth of black holes in the centers of supergiant galaxies is strongly influenced by the large-scale distribution of matter in…
After 45 years since the discovery of quantum-gravitational birth of the cosmological density perturbations we can try to answer the main question of cosmology what is the origin of the Universe. This has become possible because the…
We consider a primordial black hole of very high mass, $10^9-10^{10}M_\odot$, surrounded by dark matter and barionic halo at redshifts $z\sim20$ without any local sources of energy release. Such heavy and concentrated objects in the early…