Thursday, February 25, 2016 at 4:00 PM

JILA Auditorium

Michele Trenti, Univ of Melbourne

"Dark and Light at Cosmic Dawn"

Abstract:

The first billion years after the Big Bang poses many open questions: How and when were the first stars and galaxies formed? How does the interplay between baryonic and dark matter physics determine the properties of these objects and evolve them with time into the galaxies, stars and black holes observed today? In this talk, I will show how diverse astrophysics, such as the evolution of the galaxy luminosity function or the formation of compact star clusters, potentially harboring intermediate-mass black holes, can all be linked to the dynamical assembly of dark matter halos. Theoretical and numerical modeling of the connection between dark and light not only complements observations by unveiling widespread star formation below the current detection limits, but it also inspires the design of future investigations aimed at characterizing star formation in the young Universe.

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