Related papers: First Structure Formation and the First Stars
The first star clusters and quasars resulted directly from the growth of linear density fluctuations in the early Universe. Since they emerged from a well-defined set of initial conditions, the interplay between observational data from the…
Star formation remains an unsolved problem in astrophysics. Numerical studies of large-scale structure simulations cannot resolve the whole process and their approach usually assumes that only gas denser than a typical threshold can host…
Using radiation-hydrodynamic cosmological simulations, we present a detailed ($0.1$ pc resolution), physically motivated portrait of a typical-mass dwarf galaxy before the epoch of reionization, resolving the formation and evolution of star…
The first stars to form in the Universe -- the so-called Population III stars -- bring an end to the cosmological Dark Ages, and exert an important influence on the formation of subsequent generations of stars and on the assembly of the…
How massive were the first stars? This question is of fundamental importance for galaxy formation and cosmic reionization. Here we consider how protostellar feedback can limit the mass of a forming star. For this we must understand the rate…
I review theoretical models of star formation and how they apply across the stellar mass spectrum. Several distinct theories are under active study for massive star formation, especially Turbulent Core Accretion, Competitive Accretion and…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
The distribution of stellar masses that form in one star-formation event in a given volume of space is called the initial mass function (IMF). The IMF has been estimated from low-mass brown dwarfs to very massive stars. Combining IMF…
In hierarchical models of structure formation, the first galaxies form in low-mass dark matter potential wells, probing the behavior of dark matter on kiloparsec (kpc) scales. Even though these objects are below the detection threshold of…
The formation of the first stars and the subsequent population of X-ray binaries represents a fundamental transition in the state of the Universe as it evolves from near homogeneity to being abundant in collapsed structures such as…
We investigate the formation of metal-free, Population III (Pop III), stars within a minihalo at z ~ 20 with a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation, starting from cosmological initial conditions. Employing a hierarchical,…
Understanding the formation of the first stars and galaxies is a key problem in modern cosmology. In these lecture notes, we will derive some of the basic physical principles underlying this emerging field. We will consider the basic…
We describe observations in the nearby universe (<100 Mpc) with a 10-m or larger space-based telescope having imaging and spectral capabilities in the range 912-9000 \AA that would enable advances in the fields of massive stars, young…
Star formation is a multi-scale, multi-physics problem ranging from the size scale of molecular clouds ($\sim$10s pc) down to the size scales of dense prestellar cores ($\sim$0.1 pc) that are the birth sites of stars. Several physical…
Using three-dimensional cosmological simulations, we study the assembly process of one of the first galaxies, with a total mass of 10^8 M_sun, collapsing at z = 10. Our main goal is to trace the transport of the heavy chemical elements…
First, the formation of first objects driven by dark matter is revisited by high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations. It is revealed that dark matter haloes of ~10^4M_sun can produce first luminous objects with the aid of dark matter cusps.…
We simulate the formation of a metal-poor (10^-2 Zsun) stellar cluster in one of the first galaxies to form in the early Universe, specifically a high-redshift atomic cooling halo (z~14). This is the first calculation that resolves the…
The first stars were likely more massive than those forming today and thus rapidly evolved, exploding as supernovae and enriching the surrounding gas with their chemical products. In the Local Group, the chemical signature of the first…
We investigate the formation and early evolution of star clusters assuming that they form from a turbulent starless clump of given mass bounded inside a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a particular mass surface…
Cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of primordial star formation suggest that the gas within the first star-forming halos is turbulent. This has strong implications on the subsequent evolution, in particular on the generation of…