http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.3482
The first stars are believed to have formed a few hundred million years after the big bang in so-called dark matter minihalos with masses ~10^6 M_sun. Their radiation lit up the Universe for the first time, and the supernova explosions that ended their brief lives enriched the intergalactic medium with the first heavy elements. In the wake of their feedback, the first galaxies assembled in halos with masses ~10^8 M_sun, and hosted the first normal stellar populations. In this review, I summarize the theoretical progress made in the field of high-redshift star and galaxy formation since the turn of the millennium, with an emphasis on numerical simulations. These have become the method of choice to understand the multi-physics problem posed by the simultaneous collapse of the dark matter and gas over many orders of magnitude in scale. In particular, I focus on the evolution of minihalos beyond the initial collapse of the gas, including disk fragmentation, protostellar evolution, and radiative feedback. I also discuss the influence of additional physical processes, such as magnetic fields and streaming velocities. In the second part of the review, I summarize the various feedback mechanisms exerted by the first stars, and how they affect the formation and properties of the first galaxies.
T. Greif
Wed, 15 Oct 14
45/58
Comments: Peer-reviewed, invited review submitted to Computational Astrophysics and Cosmology; 103 pages, 13 figures; comments and suggestions welcome
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