Related papers: Starlight in the Universe
[abridged] At the end of the Spitzer cryogenic mission and the onset of the Herschel era, we review our current knowledge on galaxy evolution at IR wavelengths. We also develop new tools for the analysis of background fluctuations to…
The diffuse extragalactic background light consists of the sum of the starlight emitted by galaxies through the history of the Universe, and it could also have an important contribution from the first stars, which may have formed before…
Accurate synthetic models of stellar populations are constructed and used in evolutionary models of stellar populations in forming galaxies. Following their formation, the late type galaxies are assumed to follow the Schmidt law for star…
I review recent progress in understanding the formation of the first stars and quasars. The initial conditions for their emergence are given by the now firmly established model of cosmological structure formation. Numerical simulations of…
Recent observations suggest appreciable star formation activity in early-type galaxies down to redshift $z\sim 0.5$. If so, there is likely to be dust in these galaxies. We consider the possibility that obscuration by dust can reconcile the…
Understanding the infrared emission of galaxies is critical to observational and theoretical investigations of the condensation of galaxies out of the intergalactic medium and the conversion of gas into stars over cosmic time. From an…
Observations of the Galactic ISM have had tremendous impact on our understanding of the physics of galactic gas and the processes of galaxy formation. Similar observations at z>2 reveal the neutral baryonic content of the universe, trace…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
We discuss new constraints on the epoch of cosmic reionization and test the assumption that most of the ionizing photons responsible arose from high redshift star-forming galaxies. Good progress has been made in charting the end of…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
Star formation lies at the center of a web of processes that drive cosmic evolution: generation of radiant energy, synthesis of elements, formation of planets, and development of life. Decades of observations have yielded a variety of…
Since the epoch of cosmic star formation peak at $z \sim 2$, most of it is obscured in high mass galaxies, while in low mass galaxies the radiation escapes unobstructed. During the reionization epoch, the presence of evolved, dust obscured…
The evolution in the comoving space density of the global average galaxy star formation rate (SFR) out to a redshift around unity is well established. Beyond z~1 there is growing evidence that this evolution is flat or even increasing,…
Constraints on the molecular gas content of galaxies at high redshift are crucial to further our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution through cosmic times, as molecular gas is the fuel for star formation. Since its initial…
The cosmic infrared background (IRB) at wavelengths between 1 micron and 3 microns provides a useful probe of early star-formation prior to and during reionization. To explain the high optical depth to electron scattering, as measured by…
We use simple analytic reasoning to identify physical processes that drive the evolution of the cosmic star formation density in cold dark matter universes. Based on our analysis, we formulate a model to characterise the redshift dependence…
When and how did galaxies form and their metals accumulate? Over the last decade, this has moved from an archeological question to a live investigation: there is now a broad picture of the evolution of galaxies in dark matter halos: their…
How stars are born from clouds of gas is a rich physics problem whose solution will inform our understanding of not just stars but also planets, galaxies, and the universe itself. Star formation is stupendously inefficient. Take the Milky…
The history of the transition from a neutral intergalactic medium to one that is almost fully ionized can reveal the character of cosmological ionizing sources. In this talk I will discuss the implications for rival reionization scenarios…
Present-day clusters are massive halos containing mostly quiescent galaxies, while distant protoclusters are extended structures containing numerous star-forming galaxies. We investigate the implications of this fundamental change in a…