"THE FIRST SOURCES OF LIGHT AND THE REIONIZATION OF THE UNIVERSE"
The formation of the first stars and quasars marks the
transition
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.
I will describe the predicted properties of these sources
and their effect
on the surrounding intergalactic medium. Current observations
are just
starting to probe the hydrogen reionization epoch and
to test these
theoretical predictions.