Related papers: The Radiative Feedback of the First Cosmological O…
The role of HD cooling in the formation of primordial objects is examined by means of a great number of 1-D models of the collapse of halos, exploring a wide range of masses and virialization redshifts. We find that HD has very little…
Using radiative transfer calculations and cosmological simulations of structure formation, we study constraints that can be placed on the nature of the cosmic ultraviolet (UV) background in the redshift interval 2.5< z <5. Our approach…
We simulate a plausible cosmological model in considerable physical and numerical detail through the successive phases of reheating (at 10<z<20), formation of Pop III stars at z=15 (due to molecular hydrogen cooling), with subsequent…
Reionisation in the early Universe is likely driven by dwarf galaxies. Using cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, we study star formation and the escape of Lyman continuum (LyC) photons from mini-haloes with $M_{\rm halo} \le…
We model gas cooling in high-resolution N-body simulations in order to investigate the formation of the first generation of stars. We follow a region of a LCDM universe especially selected to contain a rich cluster by the present day. The…
Direct collapse black holes (DCBHs) formed from the collapse of atomically-cooled primordial gas in the early Universe are strong candidates for the seeds of supermassive BHs. DCBHs are thought to form in atomic cooling haloes in the…
We present the Technicolor Dawn simulations, a suite of cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of the first 1.2 billion years. By modeling a spatially-inhomogeneous UVB on-the-fly with 24 frequencies and resolving dark matter halos…
Ultra-violet (UV) radiation from accreting black holes ionizes the intergalactic gas around early quasars, carving out highly ionized bubbles in their surroundings. Any changes in a quasar's luminosity are therefore predicted to produce…
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.…
We demonstrate a novel mechanism for producing dark compact objects and black holes through a dark sector, where all the dark matter can be dissipative. Heavy dark sector particles with masses above $10^4$ GeV can come to dominate the…
Motivated by the recent detection by WMAP of a large optical depth to Thomson scattering -- implying a very early reionization epoch -- we assess a scenario where the universe was reionized by `miniquasars' powered by intermediate-mass…
It has been argued that a UV photoionizing background radiation field suppresses the formation of dwarf galaxies, and may even inhibit the formation of larger galaxies. In order to test this, we present gas-dynamical simulations of the…
It is well established that between 380000 and 1 billion years after the Big Bang the Inter Galactic Medium (IGM) underwent a "phase transformation" from cold and fully neutral to warm (~10^4 K) and ionized. Whether this phase…
Thermal and chemical evolution of primordial gas clouds irradiated with far-ultraviolet (FUV; < 13.6 eV) radiation is investigated. In clouds irradiated by intense FUV radiation, sufficient hydrogen molecules to be important for cooling are…
During Cosmic Dawn, Pop III stars could be formed in minihalos through molecular hydrogen (H$_2$) cooling. The minimum halo mass required for H$_2$ cooling is highly sensitive to Lyman-Werner (LW) radiation, which dissociates H$_2$ and…
We propose a new mechanism for the formation of seeds of supermassive black holes at early cosmic epochs. Enhanced density fluctuations with amplitudes that are not large enough to form primordial black holes post-inflation can still lead…
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…
The first stars and quasars are known sources of hard ionizing radiation in the first billion years of the Universe. We examine the joint effects of X-rays and hard UV radiation from such first-light sources on the hydrogen and helium…
Our goal is to study the effects of the UV radiation from the first stars, quasars and hypothetical Super Heavy Dark Matter (SHDM) particle decays on the formation of primordial bound objects in the Universe. We trace the evolution of a…
The first luminous objects forming in the universe produce radiation backgrounds in the FUV and X-ray bands that affect the formation of Population III stars. Using a grid of cosmological hydrodynamics zoom-in simulations, we explore the…