Open questions in the study of population III star formation
Astrophysics
2009-11-13 v1
Abstract
The first stars were key drivers of early cosmic evolution. We review the main physical elements of the current consensus view, positing that the first stars were predominantly very massive. We continue with a discussion of important open questions that confront the standard model. Among them are uncertainties in the atomic and molecular physics of the hydrogen and helium gas, the multiplicity of stars that form in minihalos, and the possible existence of two separate modes of metal-free star formation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0808.0608,
title = {Open questions in the study of population III star formation},
author = {S. C. O. Glover and P. C. Clark and T. H. Greif and J. L. Johnson and V. Bromm and R. S. Klessen and A. Stacy},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0808.0608},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
15 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the conference proceedings for IAU Symposium 255: Low-Metallicity Star Formation: From the First Stars to Dwarf Galaxies