Related papers: First Light and Reionization: A Conference Summary
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…
Temperature and polarization variations across the microwave sky include the fingerprints of quantum fluctuations in the early universe. They may soon reveal physics at unprecedented energy scales.
This thesis investigates the Epoch of Cosmic Reionization (EoR), a key period in the early Universe when the first luminous sources formed and their radiation transformed the intergalactic medium (IGM) from neutral to ionized. Understanding…
This contribution gives a brief overview of the theoretical ideas underlying our current understanding of the early Universe. Confronting the predictions of the early Universe models with cosmological observations, in particular of the…
A primeval galaxy represents the earliest stages of a galaxy's life and as such provides clues to the early history of the Universe and the evolution of stars and galaxies. Over the last 20 years astronomers have been engaged in the quest…
The "1st Workshop of Astronomy and Astrophysics for Students" was organized with the purpose of bringing togheter scientific Institutions involved in Astrophysical researches, of the Campania region and beyond. In this context the…
Over the past decade, a consensus picture has emerged in which roughly a quarter of the universe consists of dark matter. The observational evidence for the existence of dark matter is reviewed: rotation curves of galaxies, weak lensing…
While purely philosophical in the early times, and still very speculative at the beginning of the twentieth century, Cosmology has gradually entered into the realm of experimental science over the past eighty years. It has raised some…
Modern astrophysics, especially at GeV energy scales and above is a typical example where several disciplines meet: The location and distribution of the sources is the domain of astronomy. At distances corresponding to significant redshift…
We summarise the physics of first-order phase transitions in the early universe, and the possible ways in which they might come about. We then focus on gravitational waves, emphasising general qualitative features of stochastic backgrounds…
Revolutionary advances in both theory and technology have launched cosmology into its most exciting period of discovery yet. Unanticipated components of the universe have been identified, promising ideas for understanding the basic features…
The "cosmic dawn" refers to the period of the Universe's history when stars and black holes first formed and began heating and ionizing hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Though exceedingly difficult to detect directly, the first…
Whilst astronomy as a science is historically founded on observations at optical wavelengths, studying the Universe in other bands has yielded remarkable discoveries, from pulsars in the radio, signatures of the Big Bang at submm…
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 goal of searching back in cosmic time to find star formation during the epoch of reionization will soon be within reach. We assess the detectability of high-redshift galaxies by combining cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy…
Until now, investigating the early stages of galaxy formation has been primarily the realm of theoretical modeling and computer simulations, which require many physical ingredients and are challenging to test observationally. However, the…
It has recently become possible to measure directly the abundances of several chemical elements in a variety of environments at redshifts up to z = 5. In this review I summarise the latest observations of Lyman break galaxies, damped Lyman…
Cosmology has come a long way from being based on a small number of observations to being a data-driven precision science. We discuss the questions "What is observable?", "What in the Universe is knowable?" and "What are the fundamental…
Limiting the number of model-dependent assumptions to a minimum, we discuss the detectability of the sources responsible for reionization with existing and planned telescopes. We conclude that if reionization sources are UV-efficient,…
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…