Abstract
HD dominates the cooing of primordial clouds with enhanced ionization, e.g. shock-heated clouds in structure formation or supernova remnants, relic H II regions of Pop III stars and clouds with cosmic ray (CR) irradiation. There, the temperature decreases to several 10 K and the characteristic stellar mass decreases to ~10M⊙, in contrast with first stars formed from undisturbed pristine clouds (~100M⊙). However, without CR irradiation, even weak farultraviolet (FUV) irradiation suppresses HD formation/cooling. Here, we examine conditions for HD cooling in primordial clouds including both FUV and CR feedback. At the beginning of collapse, the shock-compressed gas cools with its density increasing, while the relic H II region gas cools at a constant density. Moreover, shocks tend to occur in denser environments than H II regions. Owing to the higher column density and the more effective shielding, the critical FUV intensity for HD cooling in a shock-compressed gas becomes ~10 times higher than that in relic H II regions. Consequently, in the shock-compressed gas, the critical FUV intensity exceeds the background level for most of the redshift we consider (6 ≲ z ≲ 15), while in relic H II regions, HD cooling becomes effective after the CR intensity increases enough at z ≲ 10. Our result suggests that less massive (~10M⊙) Pop III stars may be more common than previously considered and could be the dominant population of Pop III stars.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2667-2679 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
Volume | 442 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 Aug |
Keywords
- Dark ages
- Early universe
- First stars
- Reionization
- Stars: formation
- Stars: population III
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science