100 million years after the Big Bang

Abstract

Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco 4 meter telescope not only has the focal plane size the 4 meters were built for, but also has excellent near infrared response. A DECam Deep Fields program is outlined, which can reach M* galaxies at redshift 6 at a wavelength of one micron. What reionized the Universe, when did globular clusters form, were there very massive stars and how did they end, and how did supermassive black holes emerge a few hundred million years after the Big Bang ? These are some of the questions wide field high z surveys in the infrared will open to observational study.Comment: Presented at the 50th anniversary of Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observator