Related papers: Baryon-dark matter scattering and first star forma…
In popular cold dark matter cosmological scenarios, stars may have first appeared in significant numbers around a redshift of 10 or so, as the gas within protogalactic halos with virial temperatures in excess of 20,000 K (corresponding to…
We present a semi-analytic model of star formation in the early universe, beginning with the first metal-free stars. By employing a completely feedback-limited star formation prescription, stars form at maximum efficiency until the…
We investigate the suppression of the baryon density fluctuations compared to the dark matter in the linear regime. Previous calculations predict that the suppression occurs up to a characteristic mass scale of ~ 1,000,000 solar masses,…
Despite extensive search efforts, direct observations of the first (Pop III) stars have not yet succeeded. Theoretical studies have suggested that late Pop III star formation is still possible in pristine clouds of high-mass galaxies,…
Recently, Tseliakhovich and Hirata (2010) showed that during the cosmic Dark Ages the baryons were typically moving supersonically with respect to the dark matter with a spatially variable Mach number. Such supersonic motion may source…
The WMAP satellite has measured a large optical depth to electron scattering after cosmological recombination of 0.17+-0.04, implying significant reionization of the primordial gas only ~200 million years after the big bang. However, the…
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…
In order to constrain the initial mass function (IMF) of the first generation of stars (Population III), we investigate the fragmentation properties of metal-free gas in the context of a hierarchical model of structure formation. We…
We investigate the effects of Population III (Pop III) stars and their remnants on the cosmological 21-cm global signal. By combining a semi-analytic model of Pop III star formation with a global 21-cm simulation code, we investigate how…
Cold dark matter model predicts that the large-scale structure grows hierarchically. Small dark matter halos form first. Then, they grow gradually via continuous merger and accretion. These halos host the majority of baryonic matter in the…
We are approaching a new era to probe the 21-cm neutral hydrogen signal from the period of cosmic dawn. This signal offers a unique window to the virgin Universe, e.g., to study dark matter models with different small-scale behaviours. The…
Radiation feedback from massive population III stars may have given rise to low mass star formation from primordial or nearly primordial material. If early universe low mass stars did form, some should remain locally as white dwarfs,…
The first luminous objects forming in the universe produce radiation backgrounds in the FUV and X-ray bands that affect the formation of Population III stars. Using a grid of cosmological hydrodynamics zoom-in simulations, we explore the…
(abridged) We used a suite of numerical cosmological simulations in order to investigate the effect of gas cooling and star formation on the large scale matter distribution. The simulations follow the formation of cosmic structures in five…
We explore the effects of elastic scattering between dark matter and baryons on the 21-cm signal during the dark ages. In particular, we consider a dark-matter---baryon interaction with a cross section of the form $\sigma = \sigma_0…
The formation and mass distribution of the first stars depend on various environmental factors in the early universe. We compare 120 cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to explore how the baryonic streaming velocity (SV) relative to…
Recently the EDGES collaboration reported an anomalous absorption signal in the sky-averaged 21-cm spectrum around $z=17$. Such a signal may be understood as an indication for an unexpected cooling of the hydrogen gas during or prior to the…
The formation of the first stars (Population III; PopIII) marks the end of the dark ages of the universe, a subject of lively scientific debate. Not (yet) accessible to direct observations, this early stage of the universe is mostly studied…
We study the formation of galaxies by using $N$-body/hydrodynamics simulations to investigate how baryons collect at the centre of dark matter halos. We treat the dark matter as a collisionless fluid and the baryons as an ideal gas. We…
The evolution of nonlinear density fluctuations around the Jeans mass shortly after cosmological recombination is analyzed using a 3D hydrodynamics/dark--matter code. The Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) exerts Compton friction on free…