Early galaxy formation and its large-scale effects

Abstract

Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution. Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of additional physical processes must be understood and implemented in theoretical models before these can be reliably used to interpret observations. In parallel, the astonishing recent progresses made in detecting galaxies that formed only a few hundreds of million years after the Big Bang is pushing the quest for more sophisticated and detailed studies of early structures. In this review, we combine the information gleaned from different theoretical models/studies to build a coherent picture of the Universe in its early stages which includes the physics of galaxy formation along with the impact that early structures had on large-scale processes as cosmic reionization and metal enrichment of the intergalactic medium.

Solicited review published in Physics Reports. Typeset PDF available (till mid-January) at https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Y62~1KAVtT~ew

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• Seeding the Second Star: enrichment from population III, dust evolution, and cloud collapse
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• Definitive upper bound on the negligible contribution of quasars to cosmic reionization
• GALLUMI: A Galaxy Luminosity Function Pipeline for Cosmology and Astrophysics
• Double-peaked Lyman-$\alpha$ emission at z=6.803: a reionisation-era galaxy self-ionising its local HII bubble
• Elevated UV luminosity density at Cosmic Dawn explained by non-evolving, weakly mass-dependent star formation efficiency
• Can galaxy evolution mimic cosmic reionization?
• Black Hole merger rates in the first billion years in light of JWST data