Related papers: On the Detection of Supermassive Primordial Stars.…
The collapse of supermassive primordial stars in hot, atomically-cooled halos may have given birth to the first quasars at $z \sim$ 15 - 20. Recent numerical simulations of these rapidly accreting stars reveal that they are cool, red…
Supermassive stars forming at $z \sim$ 15 - 20 are one of the leading contenders for the origin of the first quasars, over 200 of which have now been discovered at $z >$ 6. These stars likely form in pristine, atomically cooled haloes…
High redshift quasars emit copious X-ray photons which heat the intergalactic medium to temperatures up to $\sim$ 10$^6$ K. At such high temperatures the primordial gas will not form stars until it is assembled into dark matter haloes with…
Supermassive primordial stars forming in atomically-cooled halos at $z \sim15-20$ are currently thought to be the progenitors of the earliest quasars in the Universe. In this picture, the star evolves under accretion rates of $0.1 - 1$…
The first stars in the history of the Universe are likely to form in the dense central regions of 10^5-10^6 Msolar cold dark matter halos at z=10-50. The annihilation of dark matter particles in these environments may lead to the formation…
Recent simulations of the formation of the first luminous objects in the universe predict isolated very massive stars to form in dark matter halos with virial temperatures large enough to allow significant amounts of molecular hydrogen to…
Identifying stars formed in pristine environments (Pop III) within the first billion years is vital to uncovering the earliest growth and chemical evolution of galaxies. Pop III galaxies, however, are typically expected to be too faint and…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has recently uncovered a new record-breaking quasar, UHZ1, at a redshift of $z\sim10$. This discovery continues JWST's trend of confronting the expectations from the standard $\Lambda$CDM model of…
While the connection between massive stars and supernova explosions is well established observationally, the link between massive stars and black hole formation remains elusive. Some massive stars may collapse directly to black holes…
Primordial supermassive stars (SMSs) formed in atomic-cooling halos at z ~ 15 - 20 are leading candidates for the seeds of the first quasars. Past numerical studies of the evolution of SMSs have typically assumed constant accretion rates…
Supernovae are important probes of the properties of stars at high redshifts because they can be detected at early epochs and their masses can be inferred from their light curves. Direct detection of the first cosmic explosions in the…
The transition between the nearly smooth initial state of the Universe and its clumpy state today occurred during the epoch when the first stars and low-luminosity quasars formed. For Cold Dark Matter cosmologies, the radiation produced by…
Supermassive stars have been proposed as the progenitors of the massive ($\sim 10^{9}\,\rm{M}_{\odot}$) quasars observed at $z\sim7$. Prospects for directly detecting supermassive stars with next-generation facilities depend critically on…
To constrain the nature of the very first stars, we investigate the collapse and fragmentation of primordial, metal-free gas clouds. We explore the physics of primordial star formation by means of three-dimensional simulations of the dark…
We discuss the expected properties of the first stellar generations in the Universe. We find that it is possible to discern truly primordial populations from the next generation of stars by measuring the metallicity of high-z star forming…
The annihilation of dark matter particles in the centers of minihalos may lead to the formation of so-called dark stars, which are cooler, larger, more massive and potentially more long-lived than conventional population III stars. Here, we…
The first stars are the key to the formation of primitive galaxies, early cosmological reionization and chemical enrichment, and the origin of supermassive black holes. Unfortunately, in spite of their extreme luminosities, individual…
The recent JWST tentative discovery of a population of super-early (redshift $z> 10$), relatively massive (stellar mass $M_* = 10^{8-9} M_{\odot}$) and evolved (metallicity $Z \approx 0.1 Z_{\odot}$) galaxies, which nevertheless show blue…
I review recent progress in understanding the formation of the first stars and quasars. The initial conditions for their emergence are given by the now firmly established model of cosmological structure formation. Numerical simulations of…
The first stars to form in the history of the universe may have been powered by dark matter annihilation rather than by fusion. This new phase of stellar evolution may have lasted millions to billions of years. These dark stars can grow to…