Bibcode
Johnson, Jarrett L.; Dalla Vecchia, C.; Khochfar, Sadegh
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 428, Issue 3, p.1857-1872
Advertised on:
1
2013
Citations
176
Refereed citations
161
Description
With the first metal enrichment by Population III (Pop III) supernovae
(SNe), the formation of the first metal-enriched, Pop II stars becomes
possible. In turn, Pop III star formation and early metal enrichment are
slowed by the high-energy radiation emitted by Pop II stars. Thus,
through the SNe and radiation they produce, Pops II and III co-evolve in
the early Universe, one regulated by the other. We present large (4
Mpc)3, high-resolution cosmological simulations in which we
self-consistently model early metal enrichment and the stellar radiation
responsible for the destruction of the coolants (H2 and HD)
required for Pop III star formation. We find that the
molecule-dissociating stellar radiation produced both locally and over
cosmological distances reduces the Pop III star formation rate at z
≳ 10 by up to an order of magnitude, to a rate per comoving volume
of ≲ 10- 4 M⊙ yr- 1 Mpc-
3, compared to the case in which this radiation is not included.
However, we find that the effect of Lyman-Werner (LW) feedback is to
enhance the amount of Pop II star formation. We attribute this to the
reduced rate at which gas is blown out of dark matter haloes by SNe in
the simulation with LW feedback, which results in larger reservoirs for
metal-enriched star formation. Even accounting for metal enrichment,
molecule-dissociating radiation and the strong suppression of low-mass
galaxy formation due to reionization at z ≲ 10, we find that Pop
III stars are still formed at a rate of ˜ 10- 5
M⊙ yr- 1 Mpc- 3 down to z ˜
6. This suggests that the majority of primordial pair-instability SNe
that may be uncovered in future surveys will be found at z ≲ 10. We
also find that the molecule-dissociating radiation emitted from Pop II
stars may destroy H2 molecules at a high enough rate to
suppress gas cooling and allow for the formation of supermassive
primordial stars which collapse to form ˜ 105
M⊙ black holes.