FIRST: the first stars and galaxies

PI: Raffaella Schneider (INAF/OAR)

 

FIRST is a five-year project funded by the European Research Council with a Starting Grant for frontier research. The project has the goal of investigating the nature and properties of the first stars and galaxies. It exploits synergies between observational cosmology, galaxy formation and stellar evolution. The two main scientific objectives are to: Understand the evolution of the first metals and dust and their role in setting the characteristic masses of stars and seed black holes; Assess the properties of the first galaxies and quasars. These goals are being addressed following an interdisciplinary approach  that involves theoretical models of stellar evolution and  nucleosynthesis, semi-analytical and numerical models of galaxy  evolution, and detailed comparison with observational data from surveys  at low and high redshifts.
The proposed project will provide new insights on the nature of the first stars and galaxies and will be of important guidance for interpreting data from ongoing surveys (HST, Spitzer, IRAM, ALMA) and for the preparation of key programs with future large telescopes (ELT, JWST).

For more information on the project and preliminary results, you may visit the link below.

 

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Participants: Raffaella Schneider (PI), Manuela Bischetti, Matteo de Bennassuti, Michele Ginolfi, Luca Graziani, Stefania Marassi, Mattia Mancini, Edwige Pezzulli, Rosa Valiante

Link to the official webpage of the project: FIRST