Related papers: The Formation of Primordial Luminous Objects
The process that leads to the formation and early evolution of low-mass stars is in a broad sense well understood theoretically and carefully traced observationally. The largest uncertainties in this framework reside in the poorly known…
[abridged]We use 3D cosmological simulations with radiative transfer to study the formation and evolution of the first galaxies in a LCDM cosmology. We find that the first luminous objects ("small-halos") are characterized by a bursting…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
The processes of star formation are fundamentally different from those of planet formation. Since the mass of a very-low-mass object alone doesn't allow us to uniquely determine its basic nature, we have to look at its other…
The physical basis of the modern cosmological inflationary models with baryosynthesis and nonbaryonic dark matter and energy implies such predictions of particle theory, that, in turn, apply to cosmology for their test. It makes physics of…
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…
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…
An introduction to modern theories for the origin of structure in the Universe is given. After a brief review of the growth of cosmological perturbations in an expanding Universe and a summary of some important observational results, the…
In order to constrain the initial mass function (IMF) of the first generation of stars (Population III), we investigate the fragmentation properties of metal-free gas in the context of a hierarchical model of structure formation. We…
The first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the universe may be Dark Stars, powered by dark matter heating rather than by fusion. Weakly interacting massive particles, which are their own antiparticles, can annihilate and provide…
Understanding the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies represents one of the most exciting frontiers in astronomy. Since the universe was filled with neutral hydrogen at early times, the most promising method 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…
In a recent paper we had discussed possibility of DM at high redshifts forming primordial planets composed entirely of DM to be one of the reasons for not detecting DM (as the flux of ambient DM particles would be consequently reduced). In…
We investigate the formation of the first stars at the end of the cosmic dark ages with a suite of three-dimensional, moving mesh simulations that directly resolve the collapse of the gas beyond the formation of the first protostar at the…
In the first two years of operation JWST has delivered key new insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early Universe. By combining imaging with spectroscopy, we discovered and characterised the first generation of…
Within the precise cosmological framework provided by the Lambda-Cold Dark Matter model and standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the chemical evolution of the pregalactic gas can now be followed with accuracy limited only by the uncertainties…
The first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the universe may be Dark Stars, powered by dark matter heating rather than by fusion. Weakly interacting massive particles, which are their own antiparticles, can annihilate and provide…
We study the evolution of gas in HII regions around the first stars after the death of the exciting stars. If the first star in a small halo dies without supernova (SN), subsequent star formation is possible in the same halo. We thus…
We review the theories and observations of high-mass star formation emphasizing the differences with those of low-mass star formation. We hereafter describe the progress expected to be achieved with Herschel, thanks notably to Key…
We argue that the first stars may have spanned the conventional mass range rather than be identified with the Very Massive Objects (100-1000 solar masses) favoured by numerical simulations. Specifically, we find that magnetic field…