The First Stars in the Universe and Cosmic Reionization

Abstract

The earliest generation of stars, far from being a mere novelty, transformed the universe from darkness to light. The first atoms to form after the Big Bang filled the universe with atomic hydrogen and a few light elements. As gravity pulled gas clouds together, the first stars ignited and their radiation turned the surrounding atoms into ions. By looking at gas between us and distant galaxies, we know that this ionization eventually pervaded all space, so that few hydrogen atoms remain today between galaxies. Knowing exactly when and how it did so is a primary goal of cosmologists, because this would tell us when the early stars formed and in what kinds of galaxies. Although this ionization is beginning to be understood by using theoretical models and computer simulations, a new generation of telescopes is being built that will map atomic hydrogen throughout the universe.

arXiv comment8 Latex pages, 3 Figures, Science, Invited Review

References in corpus (22)

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Cited by in corpus (18)

• The Rise of the First Stars: Supersonic Streaming, Radiative Feedback, and 21-cm Cosmology
• Testing massive star evolution, star-formation history and feedback at low metallicity : Spectroscopic analysis of OB stars in the SMC Wing
• The Physics and Early History of the Intergalactic Medium
• The formation and gas content of high redshift galaxies and minihalos
• A Free-Form Prediction for the Reappearance of Supernova Refsdal in the Hubble Frontier Fields Cluster MACSJ1149.5+2223
• Detectability of the First Cosmic Explosions
• Radiative transfer of energetic photons: X-rays and helium ionization in C2-Ray
• Reconstructing the nature of the first cosmic sources from the anisotropic 21-cm signal
• An Observational Limit on the Earliest GRBs
• Nucleosynthesis from massive stars 50 years after B2FH
• Plasma Suppression of Large Scale Structure Formation in the Universe
• Potential contributions of Pop III and intermediate-mass Pop II stars to cosmic chemical enrichment
• Simulating Cosmic Reionization
• The star formation history inferred from long gamma-ray bursts with high pseudo-redshifts
• Luminosity Bias (II): The Cosmic Web of the First Stars
• Discovery of O stars in the tidal Magellanic Bridge: Stellar parameters, abundances, and feedback of the nearest metal-poor massive stars and their implication for the Magellanic System ecology
• Probing Cosmological Reionization through Radio-interferometric Observations of Neutral Hydrogen
• Evolution and chemical and dynamical effects of high-mass stars