2016/04/12 by Hao Xu, Michael L. Norman, Brian W. O'Shea +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Ages #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy formation and evolution #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Halo #Physics #Redshift #Reionization #Star formation #Stars #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/0004-637x/823/2/140
8 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables. Accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2016/04/12 · openalex publication_date 2016/06/01 · arxiv updated 2016/06/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
ABSTRACT We present results on the formation of Population III (Pop III) stars at redshift 7.6 from the Renaissance Simulations, a suite of extremely high-resolution and physics-rich radiation transport hydrodynamics cosmological adaptive-mesh refinement simulations of high-redshift galaxy formation performed on the Blue Waters supercomputer. In a survey volume of about 220 comoving Mpc 3 , we found 14 Pop III galaxies with recent star formation. The surprisingly late formation of Pop III stars is possible due to two factors: (i) the metal enrichment process is local and slow, leaving plenty of pristine gas to exist in the vast volume; and (ii) strong Lyman–Werner radiation from vigorous metal-enriched star formation in early galaxies suppresses Pop III formation in (“not so”) small primordial halos with mass less than ∼3 × 10 7 M ⊙ . We quantify the properties of these Pop III galaxies and their Pop III star formation environments. We look for analogs to the recently discovered luminous Ly α emitter CR7, which has been interpreted as a Pop III star cluster within or near a metal-enriched star-forming galaxy. We find and discuss a system similar to this in some respects, however, the Pop III star cluster is far less massive and luminous than CR7 is inferred to be.