Early galaxy formation and its large-scale effects
  Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution.
Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter
background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of
additional physical processes must be understood and implemented in theoretical
models before these can be reliably used to interpret observations. In
parallel, the astonishing recent progresses made in detecting galaxies that
formed only a few hundreds of million years after the Big Bang is pushing the
quest for more sophisticated and detailed studies of early structures. In this
review, we combine the information gleaned from different theoretical
models/studies to build a coherent picture of the Universe in its early stages
which includes the physics of galaxy formation along with the impact that early
structures had on large-scale processes as cosmic reionization and metal
enrichment of the intergalactic medium.
