The Population III/II Transition

Details The Population III/II Transition The Population III/II Transition

Nov 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aipc.1294..102s&link_type=abstract

THE FIRST STARS AND GALAXIES: CHALLENGES FOR THE NEXT DECADE. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 1294, pp. 102-109 (2010).

Other

Population Iii Stars, Stellar Mass, Star Formation, Cosmology, Cosmic Background Radiation, Population Iii Stars, Masses, Star Formation, Origin And Formation Of The Universe, Background Radiations

Scientific paper

Physical conditions in primordial star forming regions systematically favor the formation of very massive stars. This is due to the larger fragmentation mass scales and accretion rates and very limited opacities in primordial gas. On the other hand, observations of present-day stellar populations (Pop II/I stars) show that stars form with a Salpeter-like initial mass function (IMF) with a characteristic mass of ~1 Msolar. Thus, unless the current picture of primordial star formation lacks some fundamental ingredient, a transition between these two modes of star formation must have occurred at some time during cosmic evolution. A number of detailed studies now suggest that the fragmentation properties of the collapsing gas clouds change as the mean metallicity of the gas rises above a critical threshold: 10-6Zsolar<=Zcr<=10-4Zsolar, where the lower limit applies when a fraction of metals is condensed in dust grains and the upper limit applies when only gas-phase metals are present. According to this view, the formation of Pop III stars (defined as those with ZIn this review, the results of low-metallicity star formation studies will be summarized. A proper understanding of the minimal conditions on a molecular which could enable a shift from a primordial to a modern IMF is mandatory before we can attempt to describe chemical feedback and the Pop III/II transition on cosmic scales and assess the observability of Pop III stars with current and forthcoming observational facilities.

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