Primordial star formation under the influence of far ultraviolet radiation: 1540 cosmological haloes and the stellar mass distribution

We perform a large set of cosmological simulations of early structure formation and follow the formation and evolution of 1540 star-forming gas clouds to derive the mass distribution of primordial stars. The star formation in our cosmological simulations is characterized by two distinct populations,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2015-03, Vol.448 (1), p.568-587
Main Authors: Hirano, S., Hosokawa, T., Yoshida, N., Omukai, K., Yorke, H. W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clouds
Cosmology
Fluid mechanics
Formations
Molecules
Populations
Red shift
Simulation
Star & galaxy formation
Star formation
Stars
Stellar evolution
Stellar mass
Ultraviolet astronomy
Universe
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Summary:We perform a large set of cosmological simulations of early structure formation and follow the formation and evolution of 1540 star-forming gas clouds to derive the mass distribution of primordial stars. The star formation in our cosmological simulations is characterized by two distinct populations, the so-called Population III.1 stars and primordial stars formed under the influence of far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation (Population III.2D stars). In this work, we determine the stellar masses by using the dependences on the physical properties of star-forming cloud and/or the external photodissociating intensity from nearby primordial stars, which are derived from the results of 2D radiation hydrodynamic simulations of protostellar feedback. The characteristic mass of the Pop III stars is found to be a few hundred solar masses at z ∼ 25, and it gradually shifts to lower masses with decreasing redshift. At high redshifts z > 20, about half of the star-forming gas clouds are exposed to intense FUV radiation and thus give birth to massive Pop III.2D stars. However, the local FUV radiation by nearby Pop III stars becomes weaker at lower redshifts, when typical Pop III stars have smaller masses and the mean physical separation between the stars becomes large owing to cosmic expansion. Therefore, at z 
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1093/mnras/stv044