Synopses & Reviews
The exploration of the first billion years of the history of the Universe, from the so-called dark ages to cosmic reionisation, represents one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics. During these phases the first structures start to grow forming the first stars, galaxies, and possibly also soon the first quasars. At the same time the dark, neutral Universe starts to be lit up and ionised by these sources, leading to its progressive reionisation anding at a redshift of about 6. Furthermore the first stars and supernovae begin to enrich their surroundings and the intergalactic medium, and to produce the first dust.
In the recent years tremendous progress has been made on the theoretical understanding and on numerical simulations of the underlying astrophysical mechanisms. Furthermore, observations of signatures of reionisation and even direct observations of galaxies at redshifts larger than 6 are now becoming feasible. The observational and theoretical aspects of this story were comprehensively and pedagocically covered by the lecturers of the 36th Saas-Fee Advanced Course. This volume contains their worked out and updated lecture notes.
Synopsis
The exploration of the first billion years of the history of the Universe represents one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics. This book contains the worked out lectures given at the 36th Saas-Fee Advanced Course First Light in the Universe by three eminent scientists in the field: Abraham Loeb, Andrea Ferrara, and Richard Ellis. The formation of the first stars and black holes, the initial mass function, feedback effects, early dust formation, the cosmic star formation history, distant galaxies, cosmic reionisation and the cosmic infrared background are the main topics treated. This book contains an accessible and up-to-date review of the field and will be useful to graduate students of astronomy, cosmologists, physicists and researchers. The topic of this book is particularly timely, as many new important observational facilities are being built, for which first light in the universe is one of the main science drivers.
Synopsis
The exploration of the first billion years of the history of the Universe represents one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics. During this time, the first structures start to form the first stars, galaxies, and possibly also soon the first quasars. At the same time, light comes to the dark, neutral Universe. This book contains the worked out lectures given at the 36th Saas-Fee Advanced Course "First Light in the Universe" by three eminent scientists in the field.
Table of Contents
Abraham Loeb: First Light.- Andrea Ferrara: Cosmological Feedbacks from the First Stars.- Richard S. Ellis: Observations of the High Redshift Universe.