The Reionization of the Universe by the First Stars and Quasars

2000/10/23 by Abraham Loeb, Rennan Barkana · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Cosmology #Electrical and Electromagnetic Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Quasar #Redshift #Reionization #Stars #Universe #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1146/annurev.astro.39.1.19

published as Ann.Rev.Astron.Astrophys. 39 (2001) 19-66 · 60 pages, including 21 figures; to be published in the 2001 Volume of Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics; A more extensive review, for Physics Reports, is also available, with a different astro-ph number, or at http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~barkana/review.html

arxiv created 2000/10/23 · openalex publication_date 2001/09/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

▪ Abstract The formation of the first stars and quasars marks the transformation of the universe from its smooth initial state to its clumpy current state. In popular cosmological models, the first sources of light began to form at a redshift z = 30 and reionized most of the hydrogen in the universe by z = 7. Current observations are at the threshold of probing the hydrogen reionization epoch. The study of high-redshift sources is likely to attract major attention in observational and theoretical cosmology over the next decade.

Citations

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Cited by

• The Bispectrum of Redshifted 21 Centimeter Fluctuations from the Dark Ages
• Hydrogen Clouds before Reionization: A Lognormal Model Approach
• The Wouthuysen-Field effect in a clumpy intergalactic medium
• Toward a More Standardized Candle Using Gamma‐Ray Burst Energetics and Spectra
• Large scale structure in the SDSS galaxy survey
• Quasars as probes of late reionization and early structure formation
• HI 21cm probes of reionization, and beyond
• Probing distant massive black holes with LISA