Related papers: A First Transients Survey with JWST: the FLARE pro…
We present a new determination of the evolving galaxy UV luminosity function (LF) over the extreme redshift range $12.5<z<18.5$, based on a wide-area search of $>$0.6 deg$^2$ of JWST NIRCam imaging containing $>150$ independent sight-lines.…
Direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs) may be the seeds of the first quasars, over 200 of which have now been detected at $z > 6$ . The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could detect DCBHs in the near infrared (NIR) at $z \lesssim 20$ and…
The contribution of stars in galaxies to cosmic reionisation depends on the star formation history in the Universe, the abundance of galaxies during reionisation, the escape fraction of ionising photons and the clumping factor of the…
Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have identified an abundant population of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) already in place during the first few hundred million years of cosmic history. Most of them appear…
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…
We review observable signatures of the first generation of stars and low-luminosity quasars, including the metal enrichment, radiation background, and dust opacity/emission that they produce. We compute the formation history of collapsed…
JWST observations have revealed an overabundance of bright galaxies at $z \geq 9$, creating apparent tensions with theoretical predictions within standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. We address this challenge using a semi-empirical approach…
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…
The high-redshift galaxy UV luminosity function (UVLF) has become essential for understanding the formation and evolution of the first galaxies. Yet, UVLFs only measure galaxy abundances, giving rise to a degeneracy between the mean galaxy…
Understanding the co-evolution of super-massive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies remains a key challenge of extragalactic astrophysics, particularly the earliest stages at high-redshift. However, studying SMBHs at high-redshift…
Transient astronomy in the early, high-redshift (z > 3) Universe is an unexplored regime that offers the possibility of probing the first stars and the Epoch of Reionization. During Cycles 1 and 2 of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST),…
Early data releases of JWST have revealed several high redshift massive galaxy candidates by photometry, and some of them have been confirmed spectroscopically. We study their implications on the primordial power spectrum. In the first…
The high-redshift progenitors of present-day galaxy clusters are believed to substantially contribute to the global star-formation rate density and drive the large-scale reionization of the Universe. Here we present a blind and unbiased…
Studying the formation and evolution of galaxies at the earliest cosmic times, and their role in reionization, requires the deepest imaging possible. Ultra-deep surveys like the HUDF and HFF have pushed to mag \mAB$\,\sim\,$30, revealing…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered a surprising abundance of bright galaxy candidates in the very early Universe ($< 500$ Myrs after the Big Bang), calling into question current galaxy formation models. Spectroscopy is…
The emergence of the first, so-called Population III (Pop III), stars shaped early cosmic history in ways that crucially depends on their initial mass function (IMF). However, because of the absence of direct observational constraints, the…
These notes present material from lectures given at the 54th Saas-Fee Advanced Course of the Swiss Society of Astrophysics and Astronomy in January 2025, entitled "Galaxies and Black Holes in the First Billion Years as seen by the JWST",…
Gamma-Ray Bursts represent unique tools to study the early phases of cosmic evolution, the formation of the first stars and galaxies. Absorption line spectra of these sources located in the Epoch of Reionization might provide us with key…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has begun to revolutionize our view of the Cosmos. The discovery of Blue Monsters (i.e., ultra-compact yet very bright high-z galaxies) and the Little Red Dots (i.e., very compact dustless strong Balmer…
On July 13, 2022, NASA released to the whole world the data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Early Release Observations (ERO). These are the first set of science-grade data from this long-awaited facility, marking the…