Related papers: A search for the first massive galaxy clusters
In cold dark matter cosmologies, the most massive dark matter halos undergo rapid growth between a redshift of z=1 and z=0, corresponding to the past 7 billion years of cosmic time. There is thus an expectation that the stellar masses of…
Supermassive black holes are now realized to exist in the centers of most galaxies. The recent discoveries of luminous quasars at redshifts higher than 6 require that these black holes were assembled already when the Universe was less than…
Galaxy protoclusters, which will eventually grow into the massive clusters we see in the local universe, are usually traced by locating overdensities of galaxies. Large spectroscopic surveys of distant galaxies now exist, but their…
Old, metal-poor globular clusters trace the formation and evolution of early-type galaxies. Their are the best probes, at low redshift, of the building-up of galaxy halos at high redshift. Their properties constrain the characteristics of…
We review recent theoretical results on the formation of the first stars and quasars in the universe, and emphasize related open questions. In particular, we list important differences between the star formation process at high redshifts…
Almost every galaxy in the local Universe is observed to have a massive black hole in the centre. The properties of these black holes are observed to tightly correlate with those of their host galaxy which has been interpreted as…
Surveys with James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered candidate galaxies in the first 400 Myr of cosmic time. Preliminary indications have suggested these candidate galaxies may be more massive and abundant than previously thought.…
Clusters of galaxies at high redshift (z>1) are vitally important to understand the evolution of the large scale structure of the Universe, the processes shaping galaxy populations and the cycle of the cosmic baryons, and to constrain…
All galaxies once passed through a hyperluminous quasar phase powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole. But because these episodes are brief, quasars are rare objects typically separated by cosmological distances. In a survey for…
Galactic nuclei host central massive objects either in the form of supermassive black holes or nuclear stellar clusters. Recent investigations have shown that both components co-exist in at least a few galaxies. In this paper we explore the…
The ubiquity of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centers of nearby luminous galaxies can arise from the multiple mergers experienced by dark matter halos in hierarchical structure formation models, even if only a small fraction of…
I begin by summarizing the evidence that there is a close relationship between the evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes. They evidently share a common fuel source, and feedback from the black hole may be needed to suppress…
The recent discovery of luminous quasars up to a redshift z=6.43 has renewed interest in the formation of black holes massive enough to power quasars. If black holes grow by Eddington-limited gas accretion with a radiative efficiency of at…
The distribution of black hole masses in galaxies is constrained by photometric and kinematic studies of individual galaxies, and by the properties of the quasar population. I review our understanding of these topics, present new results of…
Recent studies of galaxies ~2-3 Gyr after the Big Bang have revealed large, turbulent rotating systems. The existence of well-ordered rotation in galaxies during this peak epoch of cosmic star formation may suggest that gas accretion…
We calculate the observable properties of the most massive high-redshift galaxies in the hierarchical formation scenario where stellar spheroid and supermassive black hole growth are fueled by gas-rich mergers. Combining high-resolution…
High redshift galaxy clusters have traditionally been a fruitful place to study galaxy evolution. I review various search strategies for finding clusters at z > 1. Most efforts to date have concentrated on the environments of distant AGN. I…
Quasars are effective tracers of the large-scale distribution of galaxies at high redshift thanks to their high luminosity and dedicated surveys. Previous studies have shown that quasars exhibit a bias similar to that of rich groups,…
Understanding the formation history of massive galaxies is one of most popular and longstanding problems in astronomy, with observations and theory addressing how and when these systems assembled. Since the most massive galaxies in today's…
High-redshift quasars are believed to reside in massive halos in the early universe and should therefore be located in fields with overdensities of galaxies, which are thought to evolve into galaxy clusters seen in the local universe.…