A key goal of cosmology is to understand the origin and evolution of nonlinear structure in the universe, including STARS, galaxies, and black holes. Rich new sets of data will become available soon…

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded a $540,470.00 grant to the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) for research related to the formation and evolution of compact star clusters at high redshifts. The research aims to investigate several aspects of the underlying astrophysics, including the role of these clusters in producing seeds for supermassive black holes, the physics of their formation and growth, the impact of X-ray heating, and their influence on the reionization of the universe. The findings are intended to support the interpretation of data from upcoming missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), and others. This grant, which does not have a set-aside designation, aligns with NASA's strategic objective to discover how the universe works, explore its origins, and search for life on exoplanets. The University of Maryland, College Park is a state-controlled institution of higher learning and is part of the University System of Maryland, which has also received federal contracts and grants to provide research, services, and infrastructure support.

A key goal of cosmology is to understand the origin and evolution of nonlinear structure in the universe, including STARS, galaxies, and black holes. Rich new sets of data will become available soon from missions such as jwst, wfirst, x-RAY surveyor, athena, and lisa and will add to our breadth of information about this critical epoch. Although considerable effort has been devoted to large-scale cosmological simulations with the goal of providing theoretical guidance for these upcoming missions, less attention has been paid to the equally important smaller-scale astrophysical processes that underlie these simulations and are below the resolution limit of most cosmological simulations. We propose to explore several aspects of this underlying astrophysics related to compact star clusters at high redshifts, including (1) their role in the production of seeds for supermassive black holes (smbhs), (2) the physics of their formation and growth, including super-eddington accretion and cloud fragmentation, (3) the role of x-RAY heating on triggering compact clusters formation, and (4) their effect on the reionization of the universe. We will link our findings to prediction and interpretation of data from missions such as those listed above. This work has direct relevance to strategic objective 1.6 of NASA: discover how the universe works, explore how IT began and evolved, and search for life on planets around other STARS. Within this objective, we will investigate the nature of black holes and the processes of formation of STARS and galaxies.