Related papers: Probing the `Dark Age' with NGST
The universe would have been completely dark between the epoch of recombination and the development of the first non-linear structure. But at redshifts beyond 5 -- perhaps even beyond 20 -- stars formed within `subgalaxies' and created the…
In currently popular cosmological scenarios -- all variants of the cold dark matter (CDM) cosmogony -- some time beyond a redshift of 15, stars within the numerous small halos that condense with virial temperatures ~1e4 K created the first…
NGST offers unprecedented opportunities for charting the `dark ages' beyond the limits of the deep optical surveys conducted with HST. An equally important motivation, however, is a detailed physical understanding of the later stages of…
The transition between the nearly smooth initial state of the Universe and its clumpy state today occurred during the epoch when the first stars and low-luminosity quasars formed. For Cold Dark Matter cosmologies, the radiation produced by…
Through a combination of deep wide-field imaging and multi-object spectroscopy, the Next Generation Space Telescope will be able to chart with unprecedented accuracy the evolution of cosmic structures after the `dark ages' (z<5), when…
This paper considers how the first subgalactic structures produced the UV radiation that ionized the intergalactic medium before $z = 5$, and the `feedback' effects of the UV radiation on structure formation. The relevance of pregalactic…
The first stars are believed to have formed a few hundred million years after the big bang in so-called dark matter minihalos with masses ~10^6 M_sun. Their radiation lit up the Universe for the first time, and the supernova explosions that…
The Cosmic Dark Ages mark a pivotal era of the universe's evolution, transitioning from a neutral, opaque medium to the emergence of the first stars and galaxies that initiated cosmic reionization. This study examines the thermodynamics of…
Cosmic objects with magnetic fields (quasars, radiogalaxies) are observed at redshifts $z\geq 7$ (Wang et al., 2021, Fan et al., 2023, Yang et al., 2024) and more (for instance, for $z = 10.073\pm 0.002$, Goulding et al., 2023) indicates…
In popular cosmological scenarios, some time beyond a redshift of 10, stars within protogalaxies created the first heavy elements; these systems, together perhaps with an early population of quasars, generated the ultraviolet radiation and…
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…
About half a million years after the Big Bang, the ever-fading cosmic blackbody radiation cooled below 3000 K and shifted first into the infrared and then into the radio, and the smooth baryonic plasma that filled the Universe became…
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…
The formation of the first generations of stars at redshifts z > 15-20 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the universe to one of increasing complexity. We here review recent progress in understanding the assembly…
The first stars ended the cosmic Dark Ages and created the first heavy elements necessary for the formation of planets and life. The properties of these stars remain uncertain, and it may be decades before individual Pop III stars are…
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…
The formation of the first galaxies at redshifts z~10-15 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the universe to one of ever increasing complexity. We here review recent progress in understanding their assembly process with…
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…
One of the next decade's most exciting prospects is to explore the cosmic "dark ages," during which the first stars in the Universe formed, with the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen. At z>6, this light redshifts into the low-frequency radio…
With the launch of JWST and the upcoming installation of extremely large telescopes, the first galaxies in our Universe will finally be revealed. Their light will be dominated by massive stars, which peak in in the ultra-violet (UV) part of…