Related papers: First Light and the Reionization of the Universe
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…
The formation of the first stars and quasars marks the transformation of the universe from its smooth initial state to its clumpy current state. In popular cosmological models, the first sources of light began to form at redshift 30 and…
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…
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…
The formation of the first stars and quasars marks the transition between the smooth initial state and the clumpy current state of the Universe. In popular CDM cosmologies, the first sources of light started to form at a redshift z=30 and…
In cosmological models favored by current observations, the first astrophysical objects formed in dark matter halos at redshifts starting at z>20, and their properties were determined by primordial H_2 molecular chemistry. These…
The first light from stars and quasars ended the ``dark ages'' of the universe and led to the reionization of hydrogen by redshift 7. Current observations are at the threshold of probing this epoch. The study of high-redshift sources is…
The universe would have been completely dark between the epoch of recombination and the development of the first non-linear structure. But at redshifts beyond 5 -- perhaps even beyond 20 -- stars formed within `subgalaxies' and created 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…
In popular cosmological scenarios, some time beyond a redshift of 10, stars within protogalaxies created the first heavy elements; these systems, together perhaps with an early population of quasars, generated the ultraviolet radiation and…
In currently popular cosmological scenarios -- all variants of the cold dark matter (CDM) cosmogony -- some time beyond a redshift of 15, stars within the numerous small halos that condense with virial temperatures ~1e4 K created the first…
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 earliest generation of stars, far from being a mere novelty, transformed the universe from darkness to light. The first atoms to form after the Big Bang filled the universe with atomic hydrogen and a few light elements. As gravity…
The first dwarf galaxies, which constitute the building blocks of the collapsed objects we find today in the Universe, had formed hundreds of millions of years after the big bang. This pedagogical review describes the early growth of their…
The Universe's dark ages end with the formation of the first generation of galaxies. These objects start emitting ultraviolet radiation that carves out ionized regions around them. After a sufficient number of ionizing sources have formed,…
The Cosmic Dark Ages mark a pivotal era of the universe's evolution, transitioning from a neutral, opaque medium to the emergence of the first stars and galaxies that initiated cosmic reionization. This study examines the thermodynamics of…
The universe was reionized by redshift z ~ 6 by a small fraction of the baryons in the universe, which released energy following their condensation out of a cold, dark, and neutral IGM into the earliest galaxies. The theory of this…
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…
The formation of the first galaxies during cosmic dawn and reionization (at redshifts $z=5-30$), triggered the last major phase transition of our universe, as hydrogen evolved from cold and neutral to hot and ionized. The 21-cm line of…
The high ionization level and universal metallicity (1% solar) of the intergalactic gas at redshifts z<5 implies that nonlinear structure had started to form in the universe at earlier times than we currently probe. In Cold Dark Matter…