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ASTRONOMY

 
 

The First Stars and Quasars

Volker Bromm, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

How and when did the cosmic dark ages end? I present simulations of the formation of the first stars and quasars, discuss their feedback on the intergalactic medium, and describe ways to probe their signature with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the James Webb Space Telescope. The first supernovae are responsible for the initial metal enrichment of the cosmic gas, and I address the impact of this initial enrichment event on the subsequent history of structure formation. Finally, I describe the properties and statistics of high redshift GRBs and supernovae that result from the first generation of stars.