Related papers: Molecules in the early Universe
We present a refined treatment of H, He I, and He II recombination in the early Universe. The difference from previous calculations is that we use multi-level atoms and evolve the population of each level with redshift by including all…
A number of recent works in astronomy and cosmology have relied upon theoretical He I emissivities, but we know of no effort to quantify the uncertainties in the atomic data. We analyze and assign uncertainties to all relevant atomic data,…
One of the milestones in the cosmic history is the formation of the first luminous objects and Hydrogen reionization. The standard theory of cosmic structure formation predicts that the first generation of stars were born about a few…
The "dark age" of the Universe is generally pointed out as the period between the recombination epoch and the horizon of current observations (z=5-6). The arrow of time in the cosmic history describes the progression from simplicity to…
The development of primordial inhomogeneities into the non-linear regime and the formation of the first astrophysical objects within dark matter halos mark the transition from a simple, neutral, cooling universe -- described by just a few…
One of the next decade's most exciting prospects is to explore the cosmic "dark ages," during which the first stars in the Universe formed, with the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen. At z>6, this light redshifts into the low-frequency radio…
One of the main challenges in cosmology is to quantify how small density fluctuations at the recombination epoch z around 1000 evolved into the galaxies and the large-scale structure we observe in the universe today. This thesis discusses…
Probing the growth of structure from the epoch of hydrogen recombination to the formation of the first stars and galaxies is one of the most important uncharted areas of observational cosmology. Far-IR spectroscopy covering $\lambda$…
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…
It is now well known that a primordial chemistry, involving light elements produced during the nucleosynthesis period, might develop during the hydrogen post-recombination era. In particular, molecular ions and primordial molecules such as…
Standard big bang nucleosynthesis (BBNS) promises accurate predictions of the primordial abundances of deuterium, helium-3, helium-4 and lithium-7 as a function of a single parameter. Previous measurements have nearly always been…
The fundamental constants at recombination can differ from their present-day values due to degeneracies in cosmological parameters, raising the possibility of yet-undiscovered physics coupled directly to the Standard Model. We study the…
We present results of cosmological N-body hydrodynamic chemistry simulations of primordial structure growth and evolution in a scenario with warm dark matter (WDM) having a mass of 3 keV (thermal relic) and compare with a model consisting…
In this introductory chapter, we outline expectations for when and how the hydrogen and helium atoms in the universe turned from neutral to ionized, focusing on the earliest, least well understood stages, and emphasizing the most important…
The amount of deuterium relative to hydrogen (D/H) in clouds with close to primordial abundance seen at high redshift in the spectra of distant quasars currently provides the best estimate of the baryonic density of the Universe. The first…
We have included the chemical rate network responsible for the formation of molecular Hydrogen in the N-body hydrodynamic code, Hydra, in order to study the formation of the first cosmological at redshifts between 10 and 50. We have tested…
Observations on the high-redshift galaxies at $z>6$ imply that their ionizing emissivity is unable to fully reionize the Universe at $z\sim 6$. Either a high escape fraction of ionizing photons from these galaxies or a large population of…
Chemistry plays a particular role in astrophysics. After atomic hydrogen, helium and their ions, the Universe probably contains more mass in molecules than in any other species. Molecule formation in the early, pre-galactic Universe may…
The characterisation of the atomic and molecular hydrogen content of high-redshift galaxies is a major observational challenge that will be addressed over the coming years with a new generation of radio telescopes. We investigate this…
Reionization is a process whereby hydrogen (and helium) in the Universe is ionized by the radiation from first luminous sources. Theoretically, the importance of the reionization lies in its close coupling with the formation of first cosmic…