Related papers: The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Stellar In…
We investigate the physics driving the cosmic star formation (SF) history using the more than fifty large, cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations that together comprise the OverWhelmingly Large Simulations (OWLS) project. We…
The formation of the first stars in the high-redshift Universe is a sensitive probe of the small-scale, particle physics nature of dark matter (DM). We carry out cosmological simulations of primordial star formation in ultra-light,…
The first stars are expected to form through molecular-hydrogen (H$_2$) cooling, a channel that is especially sensitive to the thermal and ionization state of gas, and can thus act as a probe of exotic energy injection from decaying or…
In the local Universe, star formation is typically inefficient both globally and when considered as the fraction of gas converted into stars per local free-fall time. An important exception to this inefficiency is regions of high…
We discuss the time dependence and future of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in the context of the standard cosmological model, in which we are now entering a state of endless accelerated expansion. The mean temperature will simply…
The first stars are believed to have formed a few hundred million years after the big bang in so-called dark matter minihalos with masses ~10^6 M_sun. Their radiation lit up the Universe for the first time, and the supernova explosions that…
The relations between star formation and properties of molecular clouds are studied based on a sample of star forming regions in the Galactic Plane. Sources were selected by having radio recombination lines to provide identification of…
The major contribution to the anisotropy of the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation is believed to come from the interaction of linear density perturbations with the radiation previous to the decoupling time.…
The presence of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR) results in an increase in the degree of ionization in the post-recombination Universe, which stimulates the efficiency of the production of H$_2$ molecules and the formation of the first…
We investigate the physical and chemical conditions necessary for low-mass star formation in extragalactic environments by calculating various characteristic timescales associated with star formation for a range of initial conditions. The…
We present results of our 1.4 GHz image stacking analysis of mass-selected galaxies in the COSMOS field. From the resulting median radio continuum flux density we have determined the evolution of the average star formation rate (SFR) of…
Thermal regime of the baryons behind shock waves arising in the process of virialization of dark matter halos is governed at cetrain conditions by radiation of HD lines. A small fraction of the shocked gas can cool down to the temperature…
The temporal evolution of the ionizing UV background radiation field at high redshift provides a probe of the evolution of the early star formation rate. By comparing the observed levels of absorption in the highest redshift quasar spectra…
Using data from the mid-infrared to millimeter wavelengths for individual galaxies and for stacked ensembles at 0.5<z<2, we derive robust estimates of dust masses (Mdust) for main sequence (MS) galaxies, which obey a tight correlation…
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…
Mass measurements and absorption line studies indicate that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is bottom-heavy in the central regions of many early-type galaxies, with an excess of low mass stars compared to the IMF of the Milky Way.…
There are mainly two different approaches to measure the cosmic star formation history: direct star formation rate density (SFRD) and stellar mass density rhostar as functions of redshift. Compilations of current observations seem to show a…
Peaks and lulls in the star formation rate (SFR) over the history of the Galaxy produce plateaux and declines in the present day mass function (PDMF) where the main-sequence lifetime overlaps the age and duration of the SFR variation. These…
The first bound star-forming systems in the universe are predicted to form at redshifts of about 30 and to have masses of the order of 10^6 M_sun. Although their sizes and masses are similar to those of present star-forming regions, their…
The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) is providing important clues into the evolution of the early universe. In this Science Perspective, Joy and Carlstrom discuss one feature of the CMBR, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, which can…