Related papers: Detecting Primordial Stars
We review our current understanding of how the first galaxies formed at the end of the cosmic dark ages, a few 100 million years after the Big Bang. Modern large telescopes discovered galaxies at redshifts greater than seven, whereas…
All measurements of cosmic star formation must assume an initial distribution of stellar masses -- the stellar initial mass function -- in order to extrapolate from the star-formation rate measured for typically rare, massive stars (> 8…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is capable of probing extremely early eras of our Universe when the supersonic relative motions between dark matter and baryonic overdensities modulate structure formation ($z>\sim 10$). We study…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made startling discoveries regarding the early universe. It has revealed galaxies as soon as 300 million years after the Big Bang, challenging current galaxy formation models. Additionally, it has…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has begun to revolutionize our view of the Cosmos. The discovery of Blue Monsters (i.e., ultra-compact yet very bright high-z galaxies) and the Little Red Dots (i.e., very compact dustless strong Balmer…
The first stars in the universe are thought to be massive, forming in dark matter halos with masses around 10^6 solar masses. Recent simulations suggest that these metal-free (Population III) stars may form in binary or multiple systems.…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is unveiling astounding results about the first few hundred million years of life of the Universe, delivering images of galaxies at very high redshifts. Here, we develop a UV luminosity function model…
Some of the first stars could be cooler and more massive than standard stellar models would suggest, due to the effects of dark matter annihilation in their cores. It has recently been argued that such objects may attain masses in the…
The James Webb Space Telescope has recently detected massive, fully formed, galaxies at redshifts corresponding to few hundred million years after the Big-Bang. However, our current cosmological model cannot produce such massive systems so…
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…
Pop III stars are the key to the character of primeval galaxies, the first heavy elements, the onset of cosmological reionization, and the seeds of supermassive black holes. Unfortunately, in spite of their increasing sophistication,…
We explore the possibility of detecting first galaxies with a generic far-infrared/sub-millimeter telescope by applying an analytical model of primordial dust emission. As shown in previous works, galaxies at redshifts $z>7$ experience a…
The observable characteristics and subsequent evolution of young stellar populations is dominated by their massive stars. As our understanding of those massive stars and the factors affecting their evolution improves, so our interpretation…
As the Universe emerged from its initial hot and dense phase, its chemical composition was extremely simple, being limited to stable H and He isotopes, and traces of Li. The first stars that formed had such initial composition. However,…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered a surprising population of bright galaxies in the very early universe (<500 Myrs after the Big Bang) that is hard to explain with conventional galaxy formation models and whose physical…
The emergence of the first sources of light at redshifts of z ~ 10-30 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the Universe to one of increasing complexity. We review recent progress in our understanding of the formation of…
We show that the mere observation of the first stars (Pop III stars) in the universe can be used to place tight constraints on the strength of the interaction between dark matter and regular, baryonic matter. We apply this technique to a…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which has recently become operational, is capable of detecting objects at record-breaking redshifts, $z \gtrsim 15$. This is a crucial advance for observational cosmology, as at these redshifts the…
Direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs) may be the seeds of the first quasars, over 200 of which have now been detected at $z > 6$ . The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could detect DCBHs in the near infrared (NIR) at $z \lesssim 20$ and…
I discuss recent theoretical work on the formation and evolution of galaxies paying particular attention to the ability of current models to make detailed comparisons with observations of the galaxy population both nearby and at high…