Related papers: The First Sources of Light
Phase transitions in the early universe are prime settings for the production of primordial black holes, since they can break the relatively quiescent homogeneity and isotropy of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmologies. These epochs of…
Star forming galaxies represent a valuable tracer of cosmic history. Recent observational progress with Hubble Space Telescope has led to the discovery and study of the earliest-known galaxies corresponding to a period when the Universe was…
I review some recent progress made in our understanding of galaxy evolution and the cosmic history of star formation. Like bookends, the results obtained from deep ground-based spectroscopy and from the Hubble Deep Field imaging survey put…
We present a novel model-independent generic mechanism for primordial black hole formation within the context of non-singular matter bouncing cosmology. In particular, considering a short duration transition from the matter contracting…
The era of the universe's first (Population III) stars is essentially unconstrained by observation. Ultra-luminous and massive stars from this time altered the chemistry of the cosmos, provided the radiative scaffolding to support the…
Supermassive black holes with billion solar masses are in place already within the first Gyr, however, their origin and growth in such a short lapse of time is extremely challenging to understand. Here, we discuss the formation paths of…
The formation of the first stars out of metal-free gas appears to result in stars at least an order of magnitude more massive than in the present-day case. We here consider what controls the transition from a primordial to a modern initial…
The most massive black holes, lurking at the centers of large galaxies, must have formed less than a billion years after the big bang, as they are visible today in the form of bright quasars at redshift larger than six. Their early…
The Dark Age is the period between the time when the cosmic microwave background was emitted and the time when the evolution of structure in the universe led to the gravitational collapse of objects in which the first stars were formed. The…
This contribution summarizes briefly the main topics covered at this wide-ranging conference. Much of the evidence presented indicates that star formation occurs in discrete episodes or bursts that produce stellar groupings of all sizes,…
The cosmic history of star formation is briefly reviewed, starting with the Milky Way and then discussing observations relevant to the closed box and hierarchical build-up models. Observations of local star formation are reviewed for…
Feedback effects due to massive stars and supernovae in the first objects are shown to strongly regulate both galaxy formation/evolution and the reionization process. Here we review the most important ones in some detail. We discuss how…
When, and how, did the first galaxies and supermassive black holes (SMBH) form, and how did they reionization the Universe? First galaxy formation and cosmic reionization are among the last frontiers in studies of cosmic structure…
The most recent results and some of the open key questions on the evolution of early-type galaxies are reviewed in the general cosmological context of massive galaxy formation.
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 first generation of stars, often called Population III (or Pop III), form from metal-free primordial gas at redshifts 30 and below. They dominate the cosmic star formation history until redshifts 15 to 20, at which point the formation…
In order to derive information on the star formation history in the early universe we observed 6 high-redshift (z=3.4) quasars in the near-infrared to measure the relative iron and \mgii emission strengths. A detailed comparison of the…
Black holes are extreme outcomes of General Relativity, and can form through a variety of ways, including gravitational collapse of massive stars, or quantum fluctuations in the early universe. Here, we ask the question of whether they can…
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…
We review current understanding of star formation, outlining an overall theoretical framework and the observations that motivate it. A conception of star formation has emerged in which turbulence plays a dual role, both creating…